Children’s bike brand Frog Bikes could be rescued from administration by Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group, according to reports.
Frog Bikes filed to appoint administrators last month following “a series of significant challenges” and two weeks later news trickled through of redundancies at the firm, which maintains a factory in Pontypool and an office in Ascot. The company’s latest set of accounts, through to the end of February 2025, are also now overdue according to Companies House.
> Redundancies at Frog Bikes after popular children’s bike brand files to appoint administrators
The brand, like much of the bike industry, enjoyed a boom in demand during the pandemic but subsequently blamed Brexit and rising employment costs for their financial difficulty, despite at one point being touted by the Conservative government as a post-Brexit success story. At the time of the administration filing, the Frog Bikes said it was seeking “a strategic investment partner aligned with the long-term vision and values of the brand.”
Sky News’ Mark Kleinman reports that Frog Bikes’ administrators have set a deadline of tomorrow (Thursday 19th March) for final bids to be tabled and that Frasers Group is among them, although a spokesperson for the group declined to comment.
The move would not be the first foray into the British cycling industry for Ashley, best known for his Sports Direct brand and his former ownership of Newcastle United Football Club. Frasers Group acquired Evans Cycles in 2018, and purchased Wiggle Chain Reaction Cycles in 2024.
The proposed acquisition would also give Frasers Group another in-house cycling brand, joining the likes of Pinnacle and Vitus which were Evans and Wiggle CRC’s own product lines prior to their acquisition. However, the Frog Bikes bid, if successful, would likely result in large-scale job losses among the brand’s remaining employees.
> Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group reportedly buys Wiggle Chain Reaction Cycles for less than £10 million
The Frasers Group’s acquisition of Wiggle CRC resulted in all 447 employees losing their jobs as the brand and its stock was folded into the rest of Frasers’ retail empire. Similar moves were made when acquiring online retailer ProBikeKit in 2023, which prioritised gaining the company’s stock and intellectual property assets. Meanwhile the £8 million purchase of Evans Cycles in 2018 saw all remaining employees moved onto zero-hour contracts.
19 thoughts on “Sports Direct and Evans Cycles owner Mike Ashley reportedly to bid to save Frog Bikes from administration”
I once visited a Sports Direct shop. It had little to do with sport and everything to do with selling cheap tacky kit. I dread to think what would happen to Frog if this guy takes over.
BIG mugs.
Evans got worse.
A bit harsh – he said he only visited it /once/.
But I did come out with two huge mugs, a fake football jersey and a cuddly toy.
Take a look at Ashley-owned Muddy Fox, when I were a lad their bikes were things to lust over, now Halfords-cheapest-rival tat. I would say well at least it’s good for the employees to keep their jobs, but judging by his past record as detailed above, they won’t.
Same as what happened to Muddy Fox, they were a brilliant company with race teams in the States, Ashley bought them eventually and they are atrocious
I know this isn’t what it means, but this definitely feels like it’s ens***ification adjacent.
Where “adjacent” is what describes my undersized bib tights when I’ve squeezed into them in the morning.
This wanker kills everything he touches.
Thanks for that. The awful mental image of that juxtaposition of metaphors is going to haunt me all day!
‘Rescued’ from the frying pan…
Nothing has ever been ‘saved’ by his group. Vulture
If I were that frog, I’d probably choose to stay in the saucepan
None of his previous retail buyouts -think wiggle and Evans cycles-enjoy anything like the success of their previous iterations. There has to be some other explanation for why it makes sense for him to acquire and then ruin these businesses.
Seriously, anyone who still shops at Wiggle or Evans cycles is nuts.
To paraphrase the expression… “Never attribute something to malice that can be explained by incompetence”
He acquires the stock and brands at well below value and sells the stock off then he puts the brand names on cheap generic goods until the reputation is worthless. It’s worked for him for a couple of decades now.
Commonly know as asset stripping.
Well, that’s Frog bikes ruined, even if the staff retain their jobs (on worse T&Cs)
Has road.cc been taken over by Mike Ashley?