Frasers Group, the retail empire owned by Mike Ashley, has reportedly struck a deal to purchase Frog Bikes, rescuing the popular British children’s bike manufacturer from administration.
Frog Bikes filed to appoint administrators in February following what the company described as “a series of significant challenges”, including the long-term impact of Brexit, with 16 redundancies at the firm announced two weeks later. A further redundancy has been made since then, while two other employees have also left the company, which in February had boasted 49 staff members.
It was first reported in March that Frasers Group, the owner of cycling retail brands Evans Cycles and Wiggle Chain Reaction, were among the parties interested in tabling a bid for the brand.
A proposals report published on 10 April revealed that administrators FRP Advisory had been exploring a sale of the business, which maintains a factory in Pontypool and an office in Ascot, and its assets but that the process was still ongoing. Since entering administration, the company has continued trading.
And now, Sky News reported that a deal has been struck between Frog’s administrators and Ashley’s Frasers Group, which will see the brand saved from potential collapse. The value of the deal has not yet been revealed.
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, before purchasing Wiggle Chain Reaction Cycles in 2024.
> Wiggle administrator reveals beleaguered cycling retailer made £10.4m profit during administration
Frog’s absorption into the Ashley empires also gives 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.
It is currently not clear whether the purchase will result in large-scale job losses among the brand’s remaining employees.
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.
Frog Bikes was founded in 2013 by Jerry and Shelley Lawson, establishing itself as a one of Britain’s most popular manufacturers of children’s bikes, selling more than half a million bikes since then.
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 in February, Frog Bikes said it was seeking “a strategic investment partner aligned with the long-term vision and values of the brand.”
The brand said “tighter financial markets and reduced access to funding [made] it increasingly difficult for growing manufacturing businesses to secure the requisite working capital”. The company also cited Brexit and difficulties adjusting to post-pandemic “supply chain disruption” as reasons for its collapse into administration.
In 2021, Frog co-founders Jerry and Shelley Lawson said that leaving the European Union had cost the business £250,000 in two months.
However, two years later, the company gave their backing to the Conservative government’s post-Brexit free trade agreements, specifically the opened-up export markets to Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. In turn, the Department for Business and Trade described Frog Bikes as a post-Brexit “success story”. That announcement arrived in the same year the company accounts showed losses of £500,000, with Brexit “friction” blamed for the company’s downturn.
2 thoughts on “Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group swoops to buy Frog Bikes, as embattled children’s bike brand joins growing Sports Direct and Evans Cycles empire”
Oh, poor Frog, they don’t deserve to become another MA zombie brand. Couldnt he have bought the Wiggo brand off Halfords at a bargain rate when Bradley went through that bankruptcy instead?
Soon to be rebranded as Boiling Frog?