Indian motorcycles sold

[Shaman]

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Never saw one on the road...

I rode one. It was a decent bike, but that motor? It didn't belong in a sporting bike. It just plain felt unhappy being hurried. It was never going to get many Sportster riders moving over.

Compared to my Tuono at the time, which in a sense was a similar bike, it was chips and cheese... the Tuono liked to be caned.

Indian, on the other hand, is a different subject: to me they are the kiss of death, much like MV Agusta. It's not that the brand isn't exciting and interesting, it's the the brand is overpriced and under-delivers, and has for a long time.

 

[nobbie48]

I don't know if bankruptcy is in the immediate future. Isn't the plan with these venture cap types to drop R&D, and then squeeze every last drop of profit out of it they can before turning it over to some next brand to buy it and kick start the "revitalization" ?

Currently going through it as an Olympus camera owner... I think the company got bought up buy a ******* sushi company... The difference between my Olympus E-M5 III (launched 6+ years ago), and the current OM-5 Mark II (launched last month) is like, 3 updated features, switching from micro-usb to usb-c (slow charge only) and they made the menus prettier. That's it. Totally just coasting off of the established brand and bringing nothing new to the table

Private equity has a reputation of plunder and abandon. Maybe there's some good ones out there but we don't hear about them.

A vintage book collector I knew had a hate on for people that bought valuable old books for $200 and cut out twenty illustrations, selling them for $30 each, making a $400 profit while destroying a historic piece of literature.

IMO private equity is based on people wanting to live off their investments instead of working and innovating. In many cases it works because there are businesses out there that are worth more parted out than kept running. A shoemaker could want to keep on making shoes because it's in his blood. When PE steps in and gives him a bunch of retirement money he takes it. PE has no interest in anything except making money.

The reputation is used to sell offshore products as deluxe. Machinery and properties are sold off. The brand and copyrights licensed. Pension funds are pillaged.

Living off an investment in perpetuity isn't easy if it's a fixed principal. First throw several percent of any gain back into the principal pot to maintain the original buying power. Set aside a cut for taxes on dividends. I can't see it working on single percent interest numbers unless you have double digit millions in the principal.

A senior can survive on less by bleeding down the principal and dying broke over 10 to 20 years. Younger investors have to be cutthroat to last 40 to 50 years. Freedom 55 is a curse on the economy.

 

[Lightcycle]

Private equity has a reputation of plunder and abandon. Maybe there's some good ones out there but we don't hear about them.

Texas Pacific Group, a private equity firm, bought Ducati from an ailing Cagiva in 1996.

They took the company public in 1999, eventually selling it back to an Italian investment firm in 2005, who in turn sold it to Audi in 2012.

During Texas Pacific Group's ownership, Ducati continued developing and selling motorcycles like the Multistrada and the SportClassic, as well as winning World Superbike Championships with bikes like the 996 and the 999.

Not all private equity firms are plunder and abandon.

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