The ink has dried and Niner has been officially acquired by UWHK Ltd. The acquisition was approved last week and the purchase closed Friday afternoon.
We know many of you have questions regarding this new ownership, so we wanted to take time and answer several of them. If you have additional questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.
Q: Is Niner changing leadership or is the company moving?
A: Nope. Our headquarters are staying in beautiful Fort Collins, Colorado. Co-Founder Chris Sugai will continue to lead the company and the staff will be staying on board. In fact, we are looking to hire people for our engineering and marketing departments.
Q: Who is Emersion International?
A: UWHK Ltd. was formerly Emersion International, a Hong Kong-based entity. UWHK is an investment firm in premium global outdoor brands and a division of United Wheels Ltd. United Wheels is the majority shareholder in Huffy Corp. We will have common ownership with Huffy, but we are not the same company. Our relationship will be similar to Pon’s ownership of Cervélo and Santa Cruz, or Dorel’s ownership of mass-market bike brands as well as Cannondale.
Q: What will change?
A: We will be able to invest in more R&D…which means more fun toys down the line! There will not be any personnel changes, we will continue using the same vendors and no one is moving.
Q: Will you still work with retailers?
A: We are committed to sales through specialty retailers and will soon roll out new dealer programs. We want to make it easier for shops to do business with us. Growth in international distribution is another priority.
Q: Will my warranty still be honored?
A: Yes! For any warranty inquiries, please contact: warranty@ninerbikes.com
More information on this acquisition can be found on MTBR and BRAIN.
