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Private equity firm ECI Partners leads chase to buy EvansEvans Cycles, Manchester (CC BY 2.0 Smabs Sputzer:Flickr)

Private equity firm ECI Partners leads chase to buy Evans

52-store chain reports increased turnover and profit
by John Stevenson
Mon, Apr 13, 2015 15:28
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Rumours have been circulating for months that bike shop chain Evans is up for sale. The latest reports put private equity firm ECI Partners at the head of the pack chasing the chance to stump up around £100 million for the 52-shop, 1,200-employee business.

According to the Telegraph's Ashley Armstrong and Ben Marlow other firms in the running include Cotswold Outdoor PAI Partners, Equistone and Graphite.

Evans became a potentially more attractive prospect to investors when it recently posted a pre-tax profit on ordinary activities of £2m for the year ending November 1, compared with a loss of £98,000 in the previous year.

In that period Evans opened five new stores and increased turnover 11.4 percent to £127 million.

Two major retailing names have previously been reported as being interested in acquiring Evans, but dropped out of contention. Halfords is said to have ruled itself out in favour of focusing on its Bicycle Republic high street store project.

Mike Ashley, owner of Sports Direct and Newcastle United Football club, was reported to be interested in acquiring Evans as a way of expanding his sport retail empire into cycling.

However, at the end of last year, the CEO of Evans' owner Active Capital Nick Wilkinson told BikeBiz: “We are committed to investing in UK cycling. My vision is for our brand to inspire more people to enjoy their riding. Whatever the outcome of our strategic review, that view of the future will stay the same.”

Active Capital acquired Evans for £35 million in 2008.

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evans cycles
John Stevenson

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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10 comments

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pd500 | 9 years ago
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Hopefully Sports Direct wont get their grubby hands on Evans. Whilst Evans arent great, SD would probably absorb them into their existing shops and there would be one less bike shop on the High Street/retail park. At least if they are standalone there is room for improvement. I've always found the Holborn branch decent, but still prefer a local bike shop for advice/sales.

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LarryDavidJr | 9 years ago
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To be honest, I can't say that my experience has been that bad really. Pretty helpful, pleasant enough. As long as you take the time to print out the wiggle and crc prices before hand to save money they're fine.

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LondonDynaslow | 9 years ago
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It's already owned by private equity, which is why it's already rubbish. I'll admit to going in occasionally if I can't wait for mail order (armed with price matching ammo cost there's no way I'm paying their asking prices) but I can't believe people actually trust them to carry out work on their bikes. 13

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mrmo replied to LondonDynaslow | 9 years ago
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deblemund wrote:

It's already owned by private equity, which is why it's already rubbish. I'll admit to going in occasionally if I can't wait for mail order (armed with price matching ammo cost there's no way I'm paying their asking prices) but I can't believe people actually trust them to carry out work on their bikes. 13

my favourites, they fitted some mudguards and to get the clearance used the QR to clamp the axle such that it sat as far out as possible, another case the dropouts were crushed,( transit damage probably) but they hammered the wheel in, almost impossible to get it out again, but how could the customer prove they didn't cause the damage if they went back and complained???

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DaveE128 | 9 years ago
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I've had very mixed experiences with Evans, but I don't expect them being bought out by an even bigger chain will improve things at all.

Buying a bike from one store was generally a decent experience. However at the same store, if you go at a busy time the service is consistently abysmal. A couple of friends have had consistently awful experience from another branch close by, including quoting one price for a simple job, then demanding more than twice that sum when the bike was picked up, and snobby comments about the weight of his bike.

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gmac101 | 9 years ago
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I've had some variable experiences at Evans, at busy times they don't put some one on the till just to take cash from those buying a new inner tube (like me) and you end up waiting whilst one of the assistants finishes selling a £1000 bike which naturally takes a little longer. The workshop prices aren't very competitive but when I recently broke my chain on the way home the Kingston Branch which was open late fitted a new one for free as I didn't have chain tool with me.

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pruaga replied to gmac101 | 9 years ago
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I had the opposite experience; I was the person trying to spend £1000 and couldn't get either of the staff to spend any time with me as they were running around a big shop that clearly didn't have enough people working there. Took my money elsewhere.

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mrmo | 9 years ago
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We had an Evans open up nearby recently and I still can't quite figure out who they are aiming at. The selection of accessories is very odd.

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Iamnot Wiggins | 9 years ago
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Agreed, customer service & general all round knowledge is shocking at Evans.

Would a buy out/take over improve this? Probably not.

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ronin | 9 years ago
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I sometimes order online from Evans, but my 'local' store...they really need some customer service training.

I went into a store to return an item, and the girl on the till was with a customer who couldn't decide what bike he wanted. She was looking through a catalog online. She didn't even acknowledge me. I must have been waiting at least 15 minutes, even though I could tell that guy wasn't in a hurry to choose a bike.

Second recent visit, I had co collect a click and collect order, as I approached the till the guy just asked (barked) what's your surname. OK great I got my item, but come on, I know of no shop where that would win you endearing customers.

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