Two years ago, Ferdinand Piëch was reportedly the driving force behind Audi's acquisition of legendary Italian motorcycle manufacturer Ducati. Now Daimler has taken its own stake in MV Agusta, giving truth to rumors that surfaced in August.
The major brands in the Italian bike market—Ducati, Aprilia, Cagiva/MV Agusta, and Moto Guzzi—have all played musical chairs with parent companies ranging from larger bike manufacturers (Harley briefly owned MV Agusta), to private equity groups (TPG Capital owned Ducati after Cagiva's stewardship). Aprilia bought Guzzi from De Tomaso, and then found itself subsequently absorbed into the Piaggio empire. Along the line, Cagiva—which had resurrected the storied, dormant MV Agusta brand after buying the trademark—assumed the name of its crown-jewel brand.
Deep breath. Once again controlled by Giovanni Castiglioni, son of Cagiva founder Claudio Castiglioni, MV Agusta sold Husqvarna to BMW (who in turn fobbed it off on KTM parent Pierer Industrie last year), and focused on its eponymous products: the F-series sportbikes, the Brutale nakeds, the Turismo Veloce sport-tourers and the odd-duck, semi-supermoto Rivale. Agusta builds unique, relatively spendy machines with a small share of the overall market. And now, much as it did a year ago with small, unique, spendy Aston Martin, Daimler's buying in. Via their Mercedes-AMG performance unit, the Stuttgart behemoth has purchased a 25 percent share of the motorcycle company for an undisclosed amount.
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It's hard to see this as anything but a vanity play on Daimler's part. AMG gets a seat on MV Agusta's board, Agusta gets a cash infusion and access to serious-business R&D. Audi's got a motorcycle brand. BMW's got a motorcycle brand. And now Mercedes has a motorcycle brand. It'll be interesting to see if AMG eventually goes all-in on Agusta, enlarging their stake, or if the perilous march of Italian orphans shunted through the corporate foster-care sytem will continue on.
from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/nSHy27
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