BOULDER, Colo. (BRAIN) — The bankrutpcy of Advanced Sports Enterprises — parent company of Performance, Nashbar and Fuji-distributor ASI — dominated the web news on BicycleRetailer.com in early 2019.
Although the ASE bankrutpcy was not the single most viewed story in the year (more on that in a minute), articles related to the bankrutpcy filled five of the top 10 slots on our most-viewed list. The bankruptcy began in November 2018 and the big news wrapped up in early February 2019 when the company's remaining assets were sold off.
Tiger Group, a liquidator, and Advanced Holdings Co. LTD, a private equity firm based in Hong Kong, bought ASI, the distributor and owner of Fuji, Breezer, SE Bikes, Kestrel and other brands. AMain.com, a California retailer, bought the Performance and Nashbar e-commerce business (by that point, all the Performance brick-and-mortar stores were shut down). A real estate investment company with ties to distrbutor J&B bought ASI's remaining real estate assets.
At year's end, the Chapter 11 case continues in a North Carolina bankrutpcy court, as landlords, creditors and service providers continue to position themselves to recover as much as possible from the company, which has been renamed AE Bicycle Liquidation, Inc.
Our most viewed story of the year was a surprise: A story, which originally appeared in our February magazine, about Panasonic's decision to re-enter the U.S. e-bike market in partnership with Kent International. We've asked our web traffic experts to look into it, but we suspect the story caught the eye of some mainstream news site that linked to it.
Most of the ASI stories, and the Panasonic story, were in the first quarter of the year, before we fixed a glitch that was inaccurately reporting some traffic. For that reason and others, we're considering most of the ASI stories as one article on our list of the Top 10 most viewed articles of 2019. That allowed some articles from later in the year to appear in the top 10:
- Panasonic takes new approach to market with Kent. Feb. 18. By Doug McClellan
- ASE Bankrutpcy. Five articles were in the top 10. The most viewed article was on Jan. 17, when Head Sports, briefly, appeared to have purchased ASE's assets. That deal soon fell apart in what one participant called "a gosh awful mess."
- Chad Peterson, Intense Cycle's COO, dies following a bike accident. Sept. 3
- Ben Joannou, Jr., CEO of J&B, dies suddenly. Feb. 14.
- John Burke, Trek's CEO, offers a checklist to change our industry. Feb. 14
- Specialized agrees to pay ASI $700,000 for Roubaix trademark (a sidestory of the ASE bankruptcy saga that we decided deserves its own listing). Jan. 11.
- Rick Vosper Opinion: Shimano's gearbox changes everything. Nov. 1
- REI targets growth in bike market, to offer Cannondale and Bontrager in all stores. Feb. 27.
- Framebuilder Bruce Gordan dies. June 7.
- REI's CEO resigns following investigation into personal relationship. Feb. 12
