[Closed] Mango bikes cease trading

They were a "style over substance" brand from day one, basically flogging the same cheap imported SS/fixies you could pick up elsewhere for £150 in dayglo colours for double the price, to cash in on a passing hipster fad...

What probably did for them was branching out into geared/disc braked bikes to try and catch the commuters and strava warriors, pricing those on par with the equivalent giants or treks and thus saddling themselves with stock they couldn't shift because people would rather buy a bike from an established brand...

So basically they made bikes that were either overpriced tat or no better than well established and respected brands then blame Brexit rsther than admit it was just a crap business plan?

Didn't Brant of trouser town design some of the bikes?

The Point AR got decent reviews

If you read right through it it goes off onto a bit of an odd tangent?

Anyone else read the whole lot too?

Aritcle with the quote/line form the Owner

However, co-founder Ben Harrison has now told BikeBiz that the company has ceased trading. He blamed the weak pound for the company’s woes, and RSM, the administrators, will now be seeking a buyer for the business.

Then these would then be Carton Rieds words

The weak pound is due to Brexit, but this bicycle-industry tale has a deeper and sadly ironic Brexit back-story, which I'll get on to in a moment. First, let's explore what happened at Mango

Bit harsh cooke, I thought they were reasonable value for money. Everyone I know that has one likes it, albeit I agree there were a lot of um, compromises, in the build quality.

Poops, yes that what I meant in my OP. It all went very dark at the end in that article.

It's all a bit tin foil hat at the end. It's an odd thing to see in the cycling press.

Didn’t mango buy vulpine recently when they went bust?

They bought some of vulpine's stock towards the end (in the linked article) so were probably going to be flogging it in order to generate a bit of revenue...

Bit harsh cooke

Perhaps and I'm sure Brexit played a part too, but I'll not be shedding a tear for the company.

Whilst its good that Carlton Reid is digging into this, he does seem to have got a bit of a hard-on about it all

Whilst its good that Carlton Reid is digging into this, he does seem to have got a bit of a hard-on about it all

It's Toby Baxendale He's not a fan of, a quick browse of [url]tobybaxendale.com[/url] might explain why, the fella seems like a monstrous ego, somehow crammed into a human body.

He has some quite diverse investments, a few of those in the cycling sphere seem to be falling on their arse...

Shame, I got my dad a Point AR and despite being £300 cheaper than my Marin Lombard's RRP it had better wheels, better brakes, a frame of slightly better quality, you could customise the spec when ordering, they left the steerer uncut for him, gave him a mech hanger for free after an accident and it's much lighter. Apart from the paint being a bit crap it is amazing, and definitely better than what you can get from a shop for the same money.

there were a lot of um, compromises, in the build quality

I've seen a few with some really crap welding and others where they hadn't managed to get paint on all of the frame. Reminiscent of another budget UK brand..

Bloke who was on here last week having paid for a new bike with a debit card and never received it's going to be miffed...

Hmm, seems like a bit of a copy and paste job from the most recent Private Eye, who did a bit of digging into Legatum.

Bojo talks about letting the British Lion roar but Legatum seem like a hyena sniffing around the edge of a carcass. Bodes well...

Reads like an effort to shoehorn the Legatum stuff into the story. Certainly goes off on a tangent.

Bloke who was on here last week having paid for a new bike with a debit card and never received it's going to be miffed...

Hope he got that chargeback sorted.

[i]Reads like an effort to shoehorn the Legatum stuff into the story.[/i]

Carlton has 'views' on Brexit 😉

Set up a bike brand
get involved with a business vulture
mismanage it
get into lots of debt
set up a new company
buy another mismanaged bike brand
get into more debt
bankrupt your first business
leave your second busines
blame it on brexit

I'm not sure I'd want to touch any of that with a 10 foot barge pole.

That piece may be a bit uneven in tone, but you'd rather know that stuff than not know it, eh?

blame it on brexit

He blamed the weak pound for the company’s woes, and RSM, the administrators, will now be seeking a buyer for the business.

The weak pound is due to Brexit,

He kind of did.

No, the first part is an indirect quote from the owner.
The second part is the start of Carlton's discussion.

The weak pound is from Renton not buying so many bikes.....duh.Totes obvs.

So what exactly is the weak pound due to? only things that Carlton read writes about?

Regardless of brexit, I'd still not want to touch any of that.

thepodge - Member
So what exactly is the weak pound due to? only things that Carlton read writes about?

Point being you can blame the weak pound and not blame brexit.

You could in theory. The reality is very different.

I don't think its misleading, they are part of different paragraphs though maybe I should have put blame the weak pound instead of blame brexit.

Quoting the owner (without actual quotes) and then leading straight into an opinion piece without really making it clear is misleading.

Of course if anyone hasn't actually read the Shock Doctrine (as linked in the article through 'disaster capitalist') then I recommend it. It's horrifying.

The article is awful, although there is some good stuff in there trying to get out.

As for Mango bikes, well that's more of a story of a poor business model then Brexit or the pound.

As for Mango bikes, well that's more of a story of a poor business model then Brexit or the pound.

Whilst it is necessary for some businesses to fail for capitalism to work. We're repeatedly being told that Britain is open for business, a nation of shopkeepers and entrepreneurs, etc. And for that to work you need economic conditions that support them because unfortunately 50% of people are below average at anything in particular, including business. Not every small business can be run by Richard Branson.

So if the economic conditions are poor and businesses are failing it's a bad thing whether they were well managed or not.

It's fair to say it's perhaps not the epitome of unbiased journalism but there are some facts in amongst it all...

Mango have ceased trading and are in administration.
Mango had significant Debts at the end.

Former Mango CEO, Barry Dunn, has a history of working for other [i]"stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap"[/i] type outfits: PX and Go Outdoors and was involved in taking over some of the assets of Vulpine through another company. So one might infer that Dunn has form, and only applies one basic business model that does indeed rely on a strong pound...

Toby Baxendale is an investor in Mango, he also invested in Vulpine and has money in Planet X too.

But the rest of that article is really tangential to the basic reporting of a bike company going bust. Yes there are some interesting links between a small group of businesses, what seems to be the musical chair shenanigans of those operating, directing and investing in them, plus their apparent links to a Right of centre [s]pressure group[/s] "think tank" funded from outside the UK with what appear to be aspirations to influence the currently governing party... But that's a whole separate article and probably way outside the area BikeBiz typically tends to report, and probably belongs in another publication/website.

Not every small business can be run by Richard Branson.

shame about Mango, the point AR was on my mental list of next bikes and there are going to be staff in a hole now, but I won't lose any sleep over the owners losing out

cookeaa don't forget David Hanney from your list, another Go Outdoors / Planet-X bod who was Non-Executive Director at Mango and remains Chief Executive at Alpkit.

I would love to know how many bikes Mango actually sold over their 5 or so years in existence.

scotroutes - Member

I've seen a few with some really crap welding and others where they hadn't managed to get paint on all of the frame. Reminiscent of another budget UK brand..

Sounds like my Orange tbh

It's a quiet afternoon so some google searching......
Barry Dunn's company Wilchap564 has 3 directors - Dunn, Baxendale & Jamie Burrow (current or is he now ex Planet X designer?); David Hanney, ex PX chief exec, was director from may to september when he resigned.
Past connections with PX appear to be a common thread.
Baxendale - self described entrepreneur - is sole director of the Church Revitalisation Trust, nature of business 'activities of religious organisations'.

I think the thing with P-x was that Dave had got it all set up to sell including the board who were going to take it forward post sale.

He then decided not to sell so the board all resigned and now they've all gone on to operate in a similar market, which isn't that much of a surprise?

PX has a very high turnover of staff, its not surprising to see a lot of connections.

Quite possible; it's, maybe, one to follow - out of interest & curiosity.

Looks like Jamie Burrow was appointed on Oct 10th, the day it went pear shaped. Having worked at PX at the time, the sale was more of a Coup d'Etat against Dave L by some board members which he repelled and got rid of the rebels. I vividly remember a Henry V type speach by Barry Dunn post the events where he pleaded with the staff to stay loyal and not worry, within 3 weeks he was off to Go Outdoors, 6 months later everyone was sacked and some re-employed by an agency on zero hours contracts, nice.
Brant left at the same time and set up Pact then Brants Pants and the rest is history....

you mean they have to pay tax because they don't own an island in the BVIs to offshore it all

Well, that and he's obviously good at making the money to offshore in the first place.

Shame but no surprise that this has happened tbf.

When I visited their small unit, they felt unorganised to a degree and the place ok in the setup if a little tight, not to mention they were on a tight schedule to put bikes together and get them out the door.
The rack of frames in day glo colours were well nasty in all honesty and the quality of welding absolutely shocking on batch I saw.

I’m reckoning it’s a trial and error process in bike industry especially if limiting yourself to a tiny segment of it to customer niches.

At least they tried, felt completely underwhelmed having left their site mind.

so if mango bought vulpine, and mango have gone bust. why am I still getting emails from vulpine trying to flog me overpriced clothes?

Mango didn't buy Vulpine, a new company was set up to buy Vulpine by the owners of Mango.

This is all very interesting but when does the sale start?

WW - if you're referring to Vulpine, try Victor&Liberty; they are established stockists & typically about 20% off RRP.
Have just been on Cycle Surgery website price checking some components; they have some Vulpine at 50% off RRP.

It's a quiet afternoon so some google searching......

I think we probably need it all illustrating with some sort of 3D org' chart, who's held which role where and when. Work the connections far enough back and I'm sure we'll get back to the Lizard people and/or Illuminaté. Paging JHJ...
Tinfoil hat anyone?

^^^HoHo.
The connections are all current/recent.
I would avoid any company where any of those named show up next.
In this case past performance is probably a guide to the future 😉