Bell Helmets has changed ownership, again. This time round to Vista Outdoors Inc., an American Private Equity investor owned by an even bigger fish called Revelyst, it has split itself in two. It has flipped a Vista portfolio of powersports brands that also includes Giro, Bushnell, Camelbak, Fox Racing, QuietKat and others to another PE investor, called Strategic Value Partners. The remaining parts of the business have been packaged into a newly named entity called Kinetic Group, which has sold off the Group's ammunition division to the Prague based 'Czechoslovak Group' (CSG - formerly The Excalibur Group), whose 100 plus portfolio of investments features adjacent businesses that appear to be a more compatible home for an ammo manufacturer.
CORRECTION - in our last edition we appeared to imply that we thought that any idea Harley had of trying to engineer some kind of Bagger Racing World Championship series during MotoGP race weekends was a bad idea. We were wrong. We would like to unequivocally apologize for those remarks. We'd like to apologize for any misunderstanding or distress caused. We would like to make it clear that, in fact, we think it is a REALLY bad idea.
Research by BloombergNEF says that worldwide coal consumption grew by 4.5% in 2023 to its highest level ever. The main source of demand is electricity. The world's total generating capacity from coal-fired power stations has grown by 11% since 2015, according to E3G, an advocacy group. Coal still accounts for 41% of all greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.
Even in a best-case scenario, Germany faces another year of economic stagnation according to warnings sounded by the Bundesbank, the German Central Bank. Its mid-December 2024 warning came as it slashed its 2025 growth forecast to just 0.1% and added that a trade war with the US could push Europe's largest economy into recession. That same week the European Central Bank (ECB) reduced its primary interest rate by another quarter percent to 3%, down from a March 2023 high of around 4%. The ECB expects the combined economic growth performance of the 27-member state EU bloc to have been 0.7% in 2024. It currently forecasts 1.1% in 2025 with 1.4% in 2026 and 1.3% in 2027. Lacklustre, anaemic, stalled? Insert adjective of choice!
Reports in USA say that F1 owner Liberty Media has now secured the financing it needed to conclude its planned acquisition Madrid based Dorna Sports, the MotoGP and WSBK rights holder. Only a slew of European antitrust rules to now stand between Liberty and its $4.5bn prize. Liberty Media didn't have the cash on hand to fund the buyout and has had to take out fresh loans, leverage old debts, spin off Sirius XM subsidiary and issue new common stock to the tune of nearly $1bn in order to be able to stretch to the deal it had agreed with Dorna's private equity and pension fund prior owners. It is widely mooted that Liberty has overpaid for Dorna, and that there is disquiet among team owners in MotoGP, WSBK and Formula 1 that the owner of the series is cash-poor and debt laden. There are also suggestions that the regulatory hurdles may not be as easy to surmount as Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei has led investors to believe. Though we are now in very different times, in media outlet terms, the CVC debacle (when a planned joint MotoGP and Formula 1 ownership was previously planned) suggests that the EU could still have skin in this game.
ARP (Automotive Racing Products) will continue as the AFT series' Official Performance Fastener' for the next three seasons ('25-'27). "A world leader in fastener technology, its product line includes virtually every fastener found in an engine, driveline, suspension and frame. Designed and constructed with cutting-edge techniques and materials, ARP's bolts, nuts, and other fasteners offer maximum performance as proven by success in motorsports, from AFT to Formula 1, IndyCar, NASCAR, and NHRA, as well as in marine and aerospace applications."
