Industrial giant gets UK pedalling with Shand swoop
● Bringing cycle manufacturing back to the UK is ambition of Sanjeev Gupta
Efforts to pump up bike manufacturing in the UK have received a boost after a deal was struck by metals business Liberty House to acquire West Lothian-based Shand Cycles.
Liberty, which completed the deal over the weekend, will add the Livingston business to its existing Trillion operation in the Midlands. The group intends to expand Shand’smanufacturingcapacity, while using the engineering expertise of its Midlands vehicle technology teams to support both brands through the development of new products.
Shand, which was established in 2003 by Steven Shand, currently manufactures on a relatively small scale, with most of the products being sold in the UK. It has previously worked with Sir Chris Hoy to develop a flagship model for the Olympic medallist.
Liberty already has major industrial investments in Scotland with two Lanarkshire steel mills and an aluminium smelter and hydro power plant near Fort William.
Bringing significant cycle manufacturing back to the UK is said to have been a long-held ambition of Liberty entrepreneur Sanjeev Gupta, who began his working life selling bicycles on behalf of his father’s Indian manufacturing firm.
He said: “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 and engineers and designers in our vehicle technologies division at Leamington Spa.
“Liberty is developing a solid base upon which to build a significant bike manufacturing business, offering high quality and attractive machines to all parts of the market.”
He added: “We’re also pleased to expand further 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.”
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.
Steven Shand, who will continue to lead the business, 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 ground-breaking things in the cycle market. The link up also allows us to develop some very valuable extra manufacturing capacity.”
The expansion of bike manufacturing within Liberty also represents the revival of part of the group’s heritage. Liberty owns Accles & Pollock in Oldbury that began making steel tubes for bicycle frames more than 100 years ago.