Vittoria has welcomed the Italian fund Wise Equity as a new shareholder and owner of the Vittoria Group. Wise-Equity is an Italian private equity fund based in Milan and has been awarded ‘Best Italian LBO Fund’ for three years in a row.
Vittoria’s President Rudie Campagne (76) is taking retirement in July. This makes way for entrepreneur Stijn Vriends (48), who also enters Vittoria as a Wise Equity partner, to take the group’s helm as President and CEO.
Rudie Campagne will remain as non-executive in the Vittoria Board, and will become ‘honorary chairman for life’.
Graphene part of product vision
Vittoria argues that its ‘eagerness to innovate and disrupt the bicycle industry is endless.’ It was the first company in the world to use graphene in its bicycle tyres.
Graphene as a material is highly durable, and at the same time very light… ‘200 times stronger than steel, 200,000 times thinner than a single hair.’
Vittoria developed this technology over the course of four years, made 500 prototypes, and then launched the Vittoria Graphene bicycle tire in 2015, followed by the Vittoria Graphene bicycle wheel, the year after. This has reportedly added an annual 15% increase to its revenue.
Urban mobility
In addition to its sports performance product offerings, Vittoria also sees a huge growth opportunity in the future of urban mobility and e-bikes.
“It’s more exciting than ever to be part of the ever-changing urban mobility landscape and our graphene tyre technology, developed for sport bicycles, can now become our dominant competitive edge in the urban bike category, as graphene tyres are ideal for city-and-e-bikes, which need long endurance tires that don’t run flat,” said incoming CEO Stijn Vriends.
Back to Italian roots
Vittoria’s current Dutch owners are making way for the Italian team at Wise-Equity. “Me and my partners always wanted to bring the brand home to Italy, the cradle of the cycling world,” said retiring president Rudie Campagne. “Turning over the reins to Wise Equity therefore feels like the completion of a cycle.”
Vittoria’s headquarters will now be in Bergamo, Italy, where the group recently built a €7 million, state-of-the-art, office, test centre and logistics warehouse, bringing the brand closer to its key market and clients.
Product strategy and research will become key activities at the Bergamo HQ where scientific cooperation will be activated with the EU Graphene Flagship and compound & polymers research facilities.
‘Collaborations with suppliers of advanced chemicals will also be intensified.’
Dr Valerio De Molli, CEO and Managing Partner of Italian think thank ‘The European House Ambrosetti’ will join Vittoria as a board member. This aims to support the development of industrial strategies to ‘promote and stimulate the highly potential Italian cycling industries and create full Italian professional racing teams.’
Synergy between Asia and Italy
Vittoria’s production & production development remains in Bangkok, Thailand, where it has its two modern 100,000 square metre manufacturing facilities, spread over five buildings, housing over 1000 employees. The factory is reportedly ‘running at full capacity to meet ever-increasing demand.’
www.vittoria.com
www.wisesgr.com
