Things continue to get rough at the Pierer Mobility Group, the KTM parent company of Stefan Pierer. After having already laid off almost 300 employees in the first half of 2024, the Austrian is now about to fire even more people in order to save money.
A few years ago, things seemed to be going well for Pierer Mobility Group. One sales record after another was broken, as were turnover and profit. But that was two years ago. And now it is the second half of this year, a clearly less good period for Pierer.
Late last year, Pierer issued a profit warning for 2024, announcing it would cut about 300 jobs and move more production to India and China through its partnerships with Bajaj Auto and CFMOTO. According to Pierer, sales had declined as a result of the rising interest rates, which had also put a heavy burden on dealer inventories.
And now, after all the turmoil surrounding its acquisition of a majority stake in legendary Italian brand MV Agusta, the Pierer Mobility Group has announced plans to lay off even more employees before 2024 is over.
To give you a clearer picture of where we are today, Pierer noted that as of June 30, 2023, it had 6,314 employees. But as of June 1, 2024, the company had just 6,024 employees. That’s a difference of 290 employees, but the numbers are a little more complicated.
In the past period, 213 employees of MV Agusta have also been added to the Pierer Group. Pierer notes that the company has already laid off a total of 373 employees in the first half of 2024, but that does not explain the difference of 290 employees.
2024 remains a bad year for Pierer, however, mainly due to the decline in the bicycle segment. Things are not going well in motorcycles either, but they are especially bad in bicycles, where revenues fell by 36 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2024, compared to the same period in 2023.
Pierer’s half-year report refers to the current environment as “continued to be challenging” and predicts a revenue decline of between 10 and 15 percent for the full year 2024.
To offset this decline, the Group says it will implement “a further significant cost reduction” in the third quarter of 2024, namely the dismissal of a further 200 employees “in overheads”. That is almost exactly the same number as were added with the acquisition of MV Agusta.
– Thanks for information from Motorfreaks.