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news
Vulpine cap logos.JPGCycle clothing brand Vulpine is "insolvent" and enters administration
London-based cycle clothing brand Vulpine has entered administration. The news was confirmed in an email send this afternoon by its founder, Nick Hussey, to investors in the business.
He wrote:
It is with intense sadness that I have to inform you that Vulpine is insolvent, and I have had to take the extremely difficult but essential decision to place the company I founded into administration, under UK law, hence my unusual formality.
Two Partners from RSM Restructuring Advisory LLP will be appointed administrators next week, after a special resolution was passed yesterday by ‘A Shareholders’, who are able to vote. Once appointed the Administrators will have full control of the company and I will no longer be able to make any decisions.
We have done all we can to finance the company. The late arrival of the majority of our Spring Summer 2017 stock put us in a more difficult cash position. Thus we sought to raise investment again through crowdfunding. But this did not gain the necessary momentum to complete, likely due to the very poor trading figures of the last financial year.
Thus we pulled out of the Crowdcube attempted raise and began contacting previously interested investors and potential buyers of Vulpine, plus a raft of new contacts.
Whilst there was strong recognition of the brand, and initial verbal interest, none have produced offers or ongoing due diligence, and communication has stopped. It is highly possible that, having seen our precarious financial position and the complications of doing a fast enough deal, they are waiting to pick the business up in administration instead, if any deal is to be done.
Vulpine’s brand and business structure remains relatively undamaged at this point, and any acquisition via administration would see the highest potential value to all stakeholders if conducted as quickly as possible.
The proposed Administrators plan is to try to sell the company’s assets, such as brand, goodwill, database & website to maximize realisations for the benefit of creditors and potentially shareholders.
You can contact Robert Young at RSM for advice on this process, or if you believe there may be an interested buyer: robert.young [at] rsmuk.comI cannot offer financial advice, and I encourage you to seek your own, but if you qualify for EIS status, you should be able to claim significant Loss Relief on top of your Tax Relief.I wish you all the very best.
Ride well.
More to follow.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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253 comments
Unfortunately road.cc only rehash press releases from Vulpine and many others while also posting the odd helmet cam video crash.
Very much doubt we will see any actual investigative journalism on this.
Seems a shame to let all that research go to waste though
It's not all about you. Some people here actually manage to ride a bike more than once a week.
By the way, if you want to talk about spelling and grammar, "Its" should be "It's".
I think you missed the point @Spacer. Try reading @check12's second paragraph in your very best and most ironic [clue] Alanis Morissette voice.
But you're right about the apostrophe. No excuse for that.
From my limited knowledge I understand that creditors (i.e. When people loan a company money) get their money back first before investors etc. So it is not untoward that this was paid back while the company was being wound up.
Yeah, thanks, Trigger. Christ!
Extremely slow clap for you, Spacer...
It is coming but just like the shite on you get on Singletrackworld et al they are waiting for someone else to write the content to copy and paste it.
I'm still very interested in what has been happening with Vulpine and would hope to see more coverage from online media. I'd really like to know what's happening.
I restate that I love their products and have lots of them, but I read their crowdfunding pitch and thought I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole (the "rewards" were cr*p and the overall company aim was to sell out).
Think the big lesson here is how unregulated crowdfunding is.
FTFY.
Blimey, 230 posts about a now extinct, minor player in the cycling rag trade. Probably more posts in a week than they took orders. Sadly the crowd funding model allows Jo Public to take a punt on businesses the owner cannot / will not back. The banks, trade finance, PE have all kicked the tyres on this and walked away from it.
Andy- what size/ colour are you trying to get rid of? I might be interested.
It's a Medium size, Lightweight Harrington, in Black.
Let me know if you're interested.
There will be an update when there is something new to say that isn't based on the 'facts' presented by anonymous people in an internet comments section - some of whom would seemingly have an axe to grind with Vulpine and Nick Hussey in particular.
I know, it's unprofessional of us - cos we're all about the clicks here on road.cc.
By now we really should have put together a piece regurgitating all the 'facts' presented here as fact without checking them with the administrator or giving Nick Hussey the chance to put his side of the case, or without really caring what the consequences of doing that would be for the sale of Vulpine itself and the other people - apart from Nick Hussey - whose livelihoods also depended on the company.
Yeah, I'm ashamed our standards really have slipped, but given that lamentable decline you'll just have to wait until we can speak to the administrators (we've been trying). That will probably happen when Vulpine's corporate fate is resolved one way or the other which can't be too far away. At that point too Nick Hussey, who we've also spoken to and who says he's prevented from answering his critics by the terms of the company administration, will presumably be free to put his side of the story which we'll all be very interested to hear I'm sure.
At the end of it all no doubt some people are going to come out of this saga with their actions, motives and judgement called in to question - some of those will be real people, using their real names in the real world and even on the internet too and they'll pay some sort of price. And some may well be fictional internet creations with real people hiding behind them - somewhere - and they won't.
Thank you for the update, Tony. I don't think anyone (well, most people
) were criticising road.cc's professionalism. It's just a little frustrating when a (relatively) big story like this one explodes and then just goes utterly, completely silent (except for the echo chamber below the line).
(Could we just have a new story maybe saying that Mr Hussey has said he's not allowed to comment, etc, just so we can finally retire this article and its associated 20MB of comments...?)
Right now, even "no comment" is a valuable quote - particularly to on a website where so many readers appear to have appointed themselves editor. (I am a real editor - not here though - by the way).
But your response is appreciated, and good enough for now
Tony,
I find the below and your latest post a little smug and condescending...
Tony Farrelly wrote:
@Fixie Girl
Hi there,
In case you’re wondering where some of your comments on this story have gone - we’ve deleted them to save you from the real risk of being sued for slander.
Not sure how it works over there in Portland but over here if you call someone a crook you generally need to be able to back the assertion up with something more than your “Spidey Sense”.
As for the rumours circulating in Portland - we’ve asked around and they would appear to have no basis in fact.
At least one member of the road.cc team invested money in Vulpine, we’ve been reviewing their kit since they launched, and from time to time they’ve advertised on the site - generally we like their stuff.
Our hope is that the company will emerge from administration in some form, ideally with all or most of its workforce intact.
Don’t know how likely that is to happen, but I do know that personal abuse and unfounded rumours from someone who seems to be neither a Vulpine customer, investor or employee is unlikely to do much to help that positive outcome become a reality - the personal abuse bit also breaks our site T&Cs.
Tony,
road.cc editor
I'm not going back thru 8 pages to know whether it was sent personally or posted as a comment but either way I would anticipate that you would have more respect for your customers. Also, if you find calling someone a 'crook' to be a danger then why is it back within the comments section?
At the outset there was a large defensive push that roadcc was simply a fan of their clothes, shared their news and ads yet the discourse remains that you are spinning everything positively "is unlikely to do much to help that positive outcome become a reality".
From what I have read the likelihood of a positive outcome is minimal and the ability of the man in question to run a business successfully well er... I'll avoid slander. If encouraging people to stick to the facts and only post things written in stone then surely you have to be a little more balanced with your use of language.
Your latest post has a very relevant point about what people are allowed to say. Unfortunately, I nearly missed it as 75% of what you said was cheap digs at some of your customers for doing exactly what an internet site based on readership and discussion is likley to do. I do like your use of sarcasm though, journalism of the highest order.
p.s. please don't ban me, roadcc is all I have!
Don't worry Alan, you have to do a lot better/worse than that to get yourself banned around here.
Read my full post spacer, apology accepted.
I ride more than once a week and don't mind paying for quality but I'm not getting ripped off.
Yeah, I read it, sadly. It was snidey sixth form shite littered with grammatical errors.
I understood that the deadline for bids for the sale of the business was last Friday. I only know because the guy who replaced me at Shutt mentioned it. And no I don't think they put in a bid. It was a low price to get it apparently just not low enough.
Pete
Whereas you're setting this thread alight, Wilde-style...
I just lerned this today.
Sad. Sad for the people who invested and who worked for Vulpine.
I have a few of their items and different ranges but again like most I only bought it when they have sample sale.
some interesting comments on the bikebiz article that they managed to get written over a week ago, none of them mine btw;
http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/what-the-hell-happened-at-vulpine/021275
Vulpine sold to Mango bikes. Will Mr.Hussey break his silence now??
No. Not until the press release is issued. I got in before the official announcement.
It's on Facebook, must be true...
Screenshot_2017-05-26-21-52-12.png
Got my Cima Coppi light-weight jersey other day. I think I'll be sticking with them from now on - they're focused: Jerseys, jackets and base-layers, in wool, for cycling.
Doh!
Nice one F̶i̶x̶i̶e̶ ̶G̶i̶r̶l̶ J̶e̶n̶n̶y̶ Alan
The Mango Bikes thing is great news. From my dealings with Nick you just know that he's the sort of guy that can pull this kind of deal off - despite the moronic internet trolls spraying shade while sitting in their bedroom eating cheetohs.
Who the F are mango? A soft drink?
Kandinski -You are a total douche bag, and I bet you love the attention - If you really know Nick, which I doubt, then you know he is less than h*nest. If he has any dealings with this new venture I will eat my own ... You are a total fan boy
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