COMMENT:
Will Japanese made motorcycle sales ever head back towards their historic numbers? ..................Page
JUNE 2012 ISSUE #102
Piaggio’s 40% Asian revenue growth offsets European decline? .......................... Page 48
Bajaj Auto increased its KTM stake in April, but denies that it plans to take full control
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PRODUCTS Page 23
By Alan Cathcart - cathcart@dealer-world.com
NDIAN giant Bajaj Auto has further increased its stake in Austria’s KTM, and now holds 45.60% of the equity in KTM Power Sports/KPS, the controlling entity of Europe’s second largest motorcycle manufacturer; increased from the 39.30% stake it already owned. This came via a transaction revealed on April 4, after Bajaj Auto’s whollyowned Netherlands-based subsidiary Bajaj Auto International Holdings completed a further purchase of 6.30% of KPS stock from a key stakeholder, believed to be Austrian private equity investor Hofer Privatstiftung, through an open market transaction. Bajaj Auto, currently the secondlargest motorcycle manufacturer in India and third largest in the world, bought its first 14.5% stake in KTM in November 2007, and has been
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gathering more shares ever since then, as the two companies begin to develop a joint venture operation based on the manufacture in India (and indeed an increasing part of the entire development) of a growing range of KTM products aimed at providing an
Rajiv Bajaj: “KTM must always remain independent” affordable range of entry-level products for Western customers. These will also act as prestige models in developing markets, especially India and S.E.Asia. Indeed, KTM recently entered the
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Indian market successfully with the 200 Duke, deliveries of which began there on January 24, en route to forecast 2012 sales in excess of 20,000 units of a model built locally by Bajaj Auto. A 125cc version has already been successfully marketed in Europe, with more than 10,000 examples of the 125 Duke sold in Europe so far since its launch a year ago, meaning that around 12% of KTM’s 81,200 bikes built in 2011 were in fact made in India, not Austria, and represented a good part of the 14,873-unit increase in KTM sales from 2010, when the Austrian firm sold 66,327 units. Indeed, the 200 Duke is the first KTM model available worldwide, and is expected to sell well in Europe, too. A Bajaj-built 350cc version will follow at the end of this year, and as an example of the cross-fertilisation foreseen between the two companies,
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Pages 31-39
NEws ROOM 6-11, 48 TRADEZONE 44-45
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INDEX 46