Tucker Powersports To Be Acquired by Turn 14 Distribution
Tucker Powersports has announced that its business will be acquired by Turn 14 Distribution (Horsham, Pennsylvania) - described as one of the largest automotive aftermarket distributors in the United States.
The purchase includes certain assets of Tucker and all of its private label brands, which include well-known brands such as Kuryakyn, Twin Power, Bike Master, Answer Racing, Pro Taper and QuadBoss.
"The change in ownership will provide a huge injection of resources to better serve Tucker dealers around the country," said Marc McAllister, President and CEO of Tucker Powersports. "I am confident that Turn 14 will have a significant impact on the powersports industry with its approach to inventory and its high-quality customer service."
The news release issued on August 14 stated that "Turn 14 Distribution is noted for its customer-first approach, proprietary technology, and logistics efficiency in the automotive industry" and that it is "a sixteen-year-old, national, B2B only distributor based outside of Philadelphia, with facilities in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Texas and Nevada, and over five hundred employees across three distribution centers and two office locations."
The company is named after the 14th turn in the legendary Road America racecourse and was awarded SEMA's Warehouse Distributor of the Year in 2016, 2018 and 2021. Noted as a progressive, forward-facing business, in 2022, Turn 14 was awarded the SEMA Channel Partner of the Year award (previously known as the Warehouse Distributor of the Year) for excellence in distribution.
The company says that it will "apply to the powersports industry many of the principles the company was founded upon and is known for, including building favorable relationships with partners and employees and leveraging the company's strengths in operations, technology and customer service."
Jon Pulli, CEO of Turn 14 Distribution, stated: "We understand the importance of the dealer in the motorcycle and UTV owner experience. We are confident that powersports dealers will benefit from working with us, and we are excited to continue the legacy of Ed Tucker and others who have played an important role in this company's history."
Privately owned and operated, Turn 14 Distribution exclusively sells vehicle parts and accessories into the automotive aftermarket through the business-to-business channel. The company boasts ground shipping coverage to 43% of the U.S. population in one day and 100% within two days.
"Turn 14 Distribution leverages proprietary technology and innovative logistics solutions to drive growth while simultaneously developing robust, symbiotic relationships up and down the supply chain to accelerate that growth."
In remarks to the Tucker Powersports dealer network, McAllister said: "We know that this will have a positive impact on you and all of our customers. The purchase of Tucker Powersports is Turn 14 Distribution's entry into the powersports market, and with that comes more stability and growth for the market.
"They will apply many of the principles their company is founded on, including strong relationships with partners and employees, and leveraging its strengths in efficiency, focus and excellence in serving all types of dealers.
"For you, the customer, this means better access to more inventory, reduced operating costs through better efficiency, increased transparency, more tools to help you plan and operate your business, more customer service representatives and optimized logistics.
"Turn 14 Distribution has a well-earned reputation for listening to its customers and partners. They are known as the distributor who has embraced technology to ensure efficiency while maintaining a human-facing, customer-first mentality that comes from the core value, 'our customers are royalty.'
"In the short-term, your Tucker.com orders will be fulfilled by both Tucker and Turn 14 Distribution, and in time you will be transitioned to the Turn 14 Distribution B2B website and provided with new login information. Please remember that this acquisition is a work in progress involving several moving parts."
The acquisition marks what everyone 'with skin' in the motorcycle parts and accessory aftermarket will hope will be a decisive turn of events. One that can draw a line under what has been a turbulent decade-long sequence of instability for the business previously known as Tucker Rocky Distributing.
Former owners Lacey Diversified Industries (LDI) of Indianapolis controversially claimed to have "merged" TR with the Motorsport Aftermarket Group (MAG Inc. - owner of Vance & Hines, Performance Machine, J&P Cycles, Kuryakyn et al) in 2014.
In fact, it was an acquisition that leveraged TR as an asset, loading TR with a debt mountain that the business struggled with (eventually north of $400m) until a pre-pack Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing in November 2017.
However, the market friction caused by the "merger" and ongoing market atrophy didn't halt the decline in Tucker's fortunes at that point. The original, pre-pack "distressed asset" Private Equity ownership Group (Monomoy, Contrarian and Blue Mountain) had not been able to reverse the decline, eventually "unwinding" the MAG structure and selling business units - most famously J&P Cycles to Revzilla owner Comoto Holdings/J.W. Childs.
It had been widely expected that the remaining Tucker owner from the original consortium - Monomoy Capital Partners - was seeking a buyer for parts or all of the business this year. In the past 24 months, it had continued to bankroll Tucker, as CEO Marc McAllister sought to carve the Fort Worth based distributor a place in new markets such as electric two-wheelers, despite major lay-offs of sales and purchasing staff and accelerating reports of late vendor inventory payments.