Category: Manufacturers

Two Stella/LML rumors:

An unregistered user “Dr. Sparks” claimed yesterday on the ScooterBBS that he’d heard that a british concern was trying to buy the Star/Stella tooling from LML, not with the intention of producing the bikes, but simply to prevent its destruction. Today a rumor is circulating that LML distributors have been contacted by LML and notified that the Star would no longer be produced. Both these rumors are thirdhand and unsubstantiated, and it’s unclear whether LML’s recent financial shuffling signals a plan to reorganize or a final cash-in to pay creditors. 2SB rarely posts rumors, but it sounds like we can expect big news about LML soon.

Vendita, venduto, Vespa

Businessweek writes their own Vespa press release, recapping the IPO and outlining their plans for America. At least they’re thorough, and the slide show is a nice touch. (Note: The Scooter Scoop points out that the story says the MP3 will be here in January. They’d previously said December, and several sources have reported it will be in the “2007 product line.” I’ve not heard anything other than that the U.S. will get only the 125cc model). Also, after I joked that this was more or less a press release, a friend forwarded me an email from CooperKatz (Vespa’s PR agency) taking credit for the story. Journalism is dead.

LML does something involving money

From HindustanTimes:

Two-wheeler manufacturer LML Ltd said on Thursday that it has allotted about 27 lakh equity shares to Merrill Lynch Capital Markets Espana upon conversion of Foreign Currency Convertible Bonds (FCCBs). At the meeting held today the Financial Restructuring Committee of Directors allotted shares of Rs 10 each at a premium of Rs 21.10 per share upon FCCB conversion, the company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange.The shares were allotted upon conversion of 2000 FCCBs Series B of 1,000 dollars each aggregating to $2 million, LML added.

So make of that what you will.

The Piaggio IPO: A timeline

for those of you who (like us) have the business sense
of a six-year-old running a lemonade stand:

1999: The Agnelli Family (best known for running Fiat into the ground) sells Piaggio, with whom they also worked their magic, to Morgan Grenfell Private Equity (part of DeutscheBank). Morgan Grenfell brings Vespa back to America and loses even more money.

October 2003: Morgan Grenfell sells a chunk of Piaggio, near-bankruptcy, to Immsi, an investment company run by Roberto Colaninno, an extremely rich and powerful Italian businessman famous for paying €60 billion for Telecom Italia. He pays €100 millions for about a third of Piaggio and permission to have his way with her. Colaninno brings in Rocco Sabelli as CEO and they start turning things around, kinda like Michael Keaton and Gedde Watanabe in “Gung Ho.”
Continue reading “The Piaggio IPO: A timeline”

Garelli’s Gilardino bet pays off

A few weeks ago, 2sb poked fun at Garelli’s decision to hire Alberto Gilardino as a spokesperson, especially in light of Suzuki bringing in Alessandro Del Piero as “Mr. Burgman. Now that the Cup is over, we are eating our words, Gilardino played more minutes, and roughly equalled Del Piero’s stats. Assuming (surely) Del Piero cost Suzuki a good deal more than Garelli paid Gilardino, Garelli got quite a bargain. (We ignore the fact that Del Piero is a worldwide household name and we’d never heard of Gilardino before June):

GILARDINO Alberto (GARELLI)

MP MinP GF PG A SOG S FRE YC RC FS
5 304 1 0 1 6 8 0 0 0 9

DEL PIERO Alessandro (SUZUKI)

MP MinP GF PG A SOG S FRE YC RC FS
5 172 1 0 0 3 4 0 0 0 5

Crain’s story piques Chicago’s interest in Vespa

Stuart Luman’s story in Crain’s Chicago Business about Chicago’s lack of a Vespa dealer (2sb’s reaction) attracted a good deal of other media interest today. Along with some radio coverage and word of mouth, local culture site Chicagoist posted about the story (thanks for the link!). In a strange coincidence, the downstate Belleville News-Democrat ran a story about a sales spurt for local motorcycle dealers, including a bit about Vernon Carver of Moto Italia, the Edwardsville Vespa dealer interviewed in Luman’s story. Chicagoist’s blurb ended: “This was all just a “sky is fallingâ€? thing to see if we could make you want a Vespa. To tell you the truth, now we just want a Vespa.” Even PiaggioUSA knows, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

Why no Chicago Vespa Dealer?

Stuart Luman of Crain’s Chicago Business explores the “Great Chicago Vespa Dealer Mystery.” 2strokebuzz talked to Stuart on several occasions about the story, to the point of probably creeping him out. The story won’t be surprising to regular 2sb readers, but Crain’s gets big props for coining the word “Vesparate.” Three points that the Crain’s story missed, in our opinion (we’re not bound by the rules of journalism or a capitalist publisher, ha):

  1. While Vespa of Chicago’s closure was a direct result of the bankruptcy of Sam Tomaino’s West Suburban Auto Group, the story does not address allegations that Tomaino intended to keep the local rights and/or sell them to a new dealer. There seems to still be some dispute over the rights, which is probably why the Olde Town Motocycle Shoppe has not officially been named the new dealer. It’s also unclear whether Piaggio approached the new OTMS/MotoplexUSA or vice versa, or how Dan Kay, the former Sales Manager of Vespa Chicago, now sales manager of OTMS, was involved.
  2. The story also does not address similar conflicts in other cities where the boutique concept was abandoned and original dealers saw their dealerships taken away, or alternately, were unable to find a buyer because of Piaggio USA’s dealer obligations.
  3. The story says Vespa of Chicago is still operating through the Diversey Boutique and is not offering service on bikes, though, as 2sb has reported, Tomaino’s Roselle location, while allegedly bare-bones, is servicing bikes, and presumably doing dealer prep for the Diversey shop, which was never a service center.

2sb has no agenda here other than curiousity, and from our conversation with Luman, neither did Crain’s, but we think the more interesting story, from a business perspective, is the failure (in many markets) of PiaggioUSA’s original upscale “boutique” marketing plan, which the current management finally seems to have to abandoned, along with some of their original big-investment dealers. 2sb lacks the sources and the resources to really follow through on this story, but a whole book will be written someday about Piaggio’s return to the US, no matter whether it’s ultimately a failure or a success.

Business Standard interviews Rajiv Bajaj

Rajiv Bajaj, managing director of Bajaj Auto, talks to the Business Standard about his plans for the company, which include a big push in Mexico, cooperation with Kawasaki, and breaking the 200cc barrier. Rajiv practices yoga, runs the company “holistically,” and drools over new technology, yet we sort of miss his Harvard-Business-School, sentimental, right-wing dad Rahul Bajaj (and the Bajaj Chetak).