Liberty House’s Sanjeev Gupta buys Scottish bicycle firm
Indian-origin tycoon Sanjeev Gupta ( pictured) expanded his Liberty House metals business empire with the acquisition of Shand Cycles, a Scottish bicycle firm, on Sunday.
The UK-based entrepreneur plans to rejuvenate bicycle manufacturing in Britain with the acquisition of Shand Cycles UK, an ambition he harboured since he began his work life, selling bicycles for his father’s Indian cycle manufacturing business Victor.
Shand Cycles UK joins the stable of Liberty’s Trillion operation based in the Midlands region of England.
“We’re very excited to welcome Shand into the Liberty family of companies. We recognise the skill and quality they bring to bike production and feel they will work very well with the Trillion team, engineers and designers in our vehicle technologies division at Leamington Spa,” said Gupta, executive chairman of Liberty.
Steven Shand, founder of Shand Cycles, who would continue to lead the company, said: “This is an exciting new phase in the development of the business. Together as part of the Liberty Group I believe Trillion and ourselves can do some groundbreaking things in the cycle market. The link up also allows us to develop some very valuable extra manufacturing capacity.” Gupta feels his latest acquisition is part of Liberty’s aim to develop a solid base upon which to build a significant bike manufacturing business, offering “high quality and attractive machines”. “We’re also pleased to expand our investment in the Scottish economy where we already have major energy generation and metal manufacturing operations. Job numbers are small at present but we’re investing for growth and there will be many more, further down the line,” he said. Shand, which was established in 2003, is an independent manufacturer fabricating hand-built custom and production bikes. Liberty, part of the GFG Alliance, intends that Shand’s range of road and adventure touring bikes will complement Trillion’s offering of high-specification mountain bikes. Each will retain its brand identity within the newly-created Liberty Cycles division.