Rieju & GasGas Legacy Riders Club Forum - GASGAS factory is close again??

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Thank you Mark.

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Thanks Mark. I knew there was a lot more to the story than what those articles were saying.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Torrot NA - Mark Berg (Post 190634)

Hello Everyone,

I just wanted to let all of you know if you haven't heard already of an article released in Spain about the "closure" of the GasGas company. This story is filled with incorrect statements and half truths, it doesn't appear the USA is only country that likes fake news or news altered for an objective. There is a MAJOR restructuring going on in Spain that should have been accomplished well over 8 months ago, but with the politics between the two major shareholders, it hasn't gone quickly or smoothly. Black Toro Capital (60% investors) are looking for investors to purchase the Contreras shares in GasGas so they may split the two companies apart and during the intermediate future, they have had to do a temporary layoff. There are three investment candidates right now, and one has had 4 meetings already with a 5th meeting coming, so things are looking positive.

In Spain, if you want to restructure or eliminate/terminate employees it is NOT very easy at all. Each employee must be given a severance of 1 month plus for every year they have been employed with a company. When trying to reduce employee/overhead of at least 35 employee?s that are mostly from the Torrot side, but on the same payroll as GasGas, this is not an easy task, nor is it inexpensive. The other real option is to do a temporary layoff as they call it ?put to the fridge?. This way the government must step in and pay unemployment but it isn't anywhere close to the employee salaries, and the effect would hope to be that the employee goes looking for other work. You can now see why that story is so one sided and from the union leaders trying to make a social media outcry.

In the meantime, Black Toro Capital is continuing the needed restructure and to undo all of what the previous management had done. In the last three years, the old management went from 70 employees to 135 employees. Created a GasGas Sales office in Barcelona away from factory in Girona. Created a Torrot Sales office in Madrid. Created a Torrot Flagship store in Madrid. Hired a 3rd party warehouse for parts distribution in between Madrid and Barcelona. Started construction on a new factory for Torrot in Cadiz, Spain. Along with purchasing or acquiring SEVERAL other entities. All of these costly overheads that bring no return of investment are closing and all is going back to Girona. Thankfully! GasGas will become just GasGas again!

The aftermarket support team will still be operational the entire time, as are some of the other major support teams needed for everyday operation, which the story left out of course. Also, there is limited production still going on based on Torrot Muvi (scooter) orders and some limited production of 2020 trials in July. Product release is still set for the end of July, with our order period being in August.

There WILL BE an official press release from GasGas next week to combat this article release from the unions.

I have known of this "fridge" layoff for over 2 months (as I said, things work slow in Spain) and it is finally looking like it will take effect July 1st . This is much needed to slow down operating costs and lower staffed employees. We have been working hard here in the USA in order to do our part, and sadly some layoff's are coming here as well that none of us want. Many companies go through this including Arctic Cat, Harley Davidson and others.

We will continue to support all that have purchased a GasGas and love the brand here in North America. We have built a very good new business here in North America and are disappointed in the setbacks, but will survive and will grow again.

Thank you again for your continued support, and our door is always open!

Sorry I stirred the pot, but I guess it IS a big deal. The clarification really helps. VERY sad about layoffs, but i guess that is the nature of the business.

I may ride like crap, but I really have an affinity for GasGas. It's been a really rocky road for the brand, but they don't give up (in Spain or here). Nothing is easy, but they stick with it.

I really hope it works out, and BIG THANKS to Mark for the clarification.

Yep another big thanks from me to Mark for actually giving a crap about the customer. Very refreshing change from the norm.

Thank you Mark for the update!

Many thanks Mark!

Your statement gives me hope. I love gasGas, a tiny brand bringing a bit of red color to a boring, orange (and also white) world.

It would be great if they survive and can solve their problems. GasGas is a tiny but great family and they are all nice people.

Being Austrian I can only say that they never have been half as arrogant and negative to their customers as KTM or HQV.

Go GasGas!

Big thanks for the info, it really shows that GG's (and your) dedication to keeping the customer informed. Sounds like this is necessary, i hope it all works as planed and GG can continue to grow its new line of bikes.

all the best!

Lil' tidbit from CN yesterday

?We?re hearing all sorts of questions and stories, like our South Dakota offices are closed, and all the parts have been shipped back, but that?s not the case at all,? said Berg. ?We work with the factory on a weekly basis, moving forward in 2020 with bike sales, and with our programs, and support. My staff is still there at the offices; it?s normal business for us still. We?re constantly getting parts in and back out to our dealers and working on programs for 2020.

?In our warehouse, we have in stock well over $500,000 of parts for just trials and enduro, plus aftermarket parts, so we have a lot of parts going all the way back to 1996. With the fire that they had last year at the factory, they did have some struggles in transitions to a new warehouse and replenishing those stocks. And we did run into some issues with plastics and everything else that was obviously destroyed in the fire. But things are getting better back at the factory as far as getting caught up on back-orders. Our fulfillment rates are getting up there. Not the level that we want them to be, but they?re getting better. So, the bottom line is, we are doing well, and it?s business as usual at GasGas North America.?

Berg added, ?When the Contreras family and the Torrot Group bought GasGas in 2016, they didn?t use their own money. They used a company called Black Toro Capital as its investment company. Throughout all this, GasGas had a very successful 2017 with the new 2018 models in that time frame. They did $40 million in sales that year, and $30 million of it was GasGas sales. Only 10 of it was Torrot sales. But Torrot decided to take that cash and invest more into electric, more into green energy, and they kind of left GasGas holding the bag for 2019 R&D and 2020 R&D. That?s where the Black Toro Capital said enough is enough. GasGas is the company that is profitable. GasGas has a viable future. We?re going to take control of that. That?s where they?re at right now, working on splitting up the two companies and we are just working on aftersales support and keeping our dealers plus consumers in the loop of what is truly going on.?

As the World Burns...any updates? I just bought (last week) a 2014 GASGAS-powered Christini AWD 300 E-Start, based in part on my confidence in GASGAS and it's products.