After the bike industry’s pandemic boom and bust, what’s next?

July 26, 2024

Investment bank Houlihan Lokey, with management consulting firm Kearney, recently released a research report [PDF] attempting to predict what the next few years look like for the bike industry, and it’s overall a rosy picture: supply chains stabilizing, inventory overhang dissipating, and gradually rising sales. But the most interesting prediction was a coming surge in mergers and acquisitions.

As the report details, M&A activity in the industry was largely static in the five years before the pandemic, with 20-25 deals a year. But from 2020-2022, that figure almost quadrupled to a high of 96, before falling back to a still-elevated 66 deals last year. Recent deals include Amer Sports selling components company Enve, L Catterton divesting bikemaker Pinarello, and Vista Outdoor’s purchase of Fox Racing (the apparel brand, not suspension maker Fox Factory). Escape Collective