Eddy Merckx posts multi-million Euro 2016 loss despite higher sales

Eddy Merckx Cycles CEO Bart Van Muylder has told Bike Europe that the firm made a multi-million Euro loss in 2016, despite having grown sales.

Dedicated to road racing, the CEO says that the downturn was as good as unavoidable as the firm has no other categories to fall back on.

“The market for road race bike dropped by 25% last year and as specialist in this category we were hit unexpectedly hard,” he told the European trade title.

“Our turnover was stable although we anticipated on a growth in sales. Still we are proud we could double our sales over the past two years and we still believe in the future of Eddy Merckx Cycles.”

Since Diepensteyn took ownership of the firm it has posted a total loss of €17 million, €5.7 million of which came in 2016. Despite this, sales rose to account for €8.8 million in 2016 revenue.

The news comes on the back of a renewed investment in the business by sole owner Diepensteyn, who drove its funding up to €27.7 million to bolster the firm’s solvency and liquidity.

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