The insolvency proceedings at KTM AG and the financial holding company Pierer Mobility AG ended at the end of May; creditors were subsequently paid 30 percent of their debts, totalling €1.8 billion. At the end of July, motorcycle production in Mattighofen restarted after two production shutdowns lasting more than six months. At the end of April 2025, production was halted again because the supply chain had collapsed. Since the insolvency procedure most suppliers for the KTM, Husqvarna, and GASGAS brands are only producing components for the plant in Upper Austria against advance payment.
Since then, the restructuring measures have continued in order to bring KTM back to profitability at least by 2027.
KTM had already reversed the purchase of its 50.1 percent stake in MV Agusta Motor S.p.A. with the Sardarov family in the spring, thereby generating a mid-double-digit million sum. The successful sale of the sports car company KTM Sportcar, which produces the X-bow, had been prematurely announced for months. However, the sale of the automotive division was only completed on Monday, months later. A Belgian investor consortium, including a member of the De Mevius family, is now the sole owner of KTM Sportcar following the successful closing, KTM announced on Monday.
The sale of the automotive division is "a decisive step in the ongoing strategic realignment of the company", KTM reported. The new owners are committed to the production site in Graz, thereby securing jobs and value creation in Austria, wrote Gottfried Neumeister, CEO of KTM AG. CEO Michael Wölfling will remain in charge of operational management. The purchase price was kept confidential, but the deal brought a double-digit million amount into KTM's coffers.
Almost at the same time, KTM closed the GASGAS headquarters in Spain, which had only been newly built in 2021 for 5.7 million euros. 40 new jobs were created at the time, and the factory's production capacity was stated to be 5,000 motorcycles per year. This seemed to have saved the GASGAS brand, which had to cease production in 2016 due to lack of money.
The new GASGAS headquarters housed a new production and R&D facility. Previously, the company's headquarters was based in Salt, Girona, a location that still hosts production for the brand's trial motorcycles. The new state-of-the-art facility in Terrassa served as the primary hub for production, R&D, logistics, distribution, customer service, and sports activities for the GASGAS brand. The original factory in Salt remained an important location and continued to produce GASGAS trial motorcycles.
The GASGAS brand is to be retained for the time being, although the former management made no secret of the fact that in 2024 GASGAS sales were cannibalizing sales of the premium brands KTM and Husqvarna. The range of GASGAS street motorcycles planned for 2024 never materialized and has since fallen victim to the red pen.
For years, GASGAS had fielded expensive factory teams in every conceivable racing series, from motocross to Dakar rally, Supercross and Trial World Championships to all three GP classes, under the motto "GET ON THE GAS!" The MotoGP adventure with the Tech3 team in 2023 and 2024 alone consumed 15 million euros annually. Pedro Acosta achieved nine podium finishes as a rookie last year, but only off-road models were ever available for purchase.
The Mattighofen site will benefit from the relocation of GASGAS's activities to Austria, the company emphasized. "This will allow us to pool our expertise, optimize production processes, and increase efficiency within the company," a company spokesperson assured on Friday.
KTM acquired its dormant Spanish competitor GASGAS in 2019 for virtually no cost. In 2023, Pierer Mobility AG still achieved record total sales of €2.661 billion. The number of motorcycles sold across all brands (KTM, Husqvarna, GASGAS, MV Agusta) totalled 381,555 units. At the same time, 157,358 bicycles and e-bikes were sold, representing an increase of 33%. However, compared to KTM (280,206 units) and Husqvarna (67,462 units), GASGAS' sales figures stagnated at 29,532 motorcycles.
As recently as August 2024, GASGAS presented a special livery at Silverstone to celebrate GASGAS' 75th anniversary at the British GP, featuring MotoGP Tech3 riders Pedro Acosta and Augusto Fernández.
The question of how long GASGAS motorcycles will remain part of the Pierer portfolio cannot be answered for the time being.
Incidentally, in March, Pierer Mobility AG opened a magnificent new headquarters in California. It spans 16,000 square meters and cost approximately $53 million to build.
The sale of the US bicycle brand FELT, which Pierer Mobility announced in December 2023 and was acquired for €1.2 million, has not yet been completed. Instead, it consolidated its ownership under one entity within its group, making it the majority shareholder. In late 2023, Pierer had announced plans to sell FELT to a consortium led by Florian Burguet and Cesar Rojo junior (the son of the former Derbi race director created the exclusive bicycle brand Unno), but this was revised to ensure the Pierer Group remains the major shareholder while also creating a new ownership structure. The intention was to divest non-e-bike business, but the brand will continue to operate and remain part of the Pierer Group through Pierer New Mobility GmbH.
KTM AG has ceased all activities in the bicycle business since the onset of insolvency. Overall, the Pierer Group in the past few years has generated losses of 400 million euros in the bicycle segment, which corresponds to the entire equity of the company, which was geared towards perpetual growth.
The power struggle between the new KTM CEO Gottfried Neumeister and Stefan Pierer, who resigned from all functions in January 2025, has now most likely been decided in favour of the newcomer. Neumeister decided not to attend the Misano GP in September and instead flew to Dubai for a meeting with the future majority owner Rajiv Bajaj to resolve certain disagreements.
Previously, at the Spielberg GP, former KTM boss Stefan Pierer had made no secret of the fact that, in coordination with Bajaj, he was attempting to sell the Swiss-based KTM Racing AG and the KTM Factory Racing division in Munderfing, along with the two MotoGP slots, to an investor. Shortly before, Neumeister had been negotiating precisely this deal in Brno, including a meeting with Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta.
Thanks to cash injections totalling €800 million, the previous major shareholder, Bajaj, will acquire the majority stake from Stefan Pierer by the end of May 2026 at the latest.
Pierer Industrie AG (PIAG) is still the majority owner of Pierer Bajaj AG with a 50,1% stake, while Bajaj Auto International Holdings B.V. currently holds the remaining 49.9%. Bajaj has signed a call option for the majority of the shares in May 2025. Pierer Bajaj AG will then hold a 74.9% stake in the financial holding company Pierer Mobility AG. A further 0.1 percent is held by Pierer Konzerngesellschaft mbH, Austria. The free float of the shares is approximately 25.0 percent.
The Indian company Bajaj has already built more than 1 million motorcycles for the Austrian company and plans to acquire a majority stake in Pierer Bajaj AG, a joint venture that owns around three-quarters of KTM's parent company, Pierer Mobility. This will give Bajaj significantly more influence within the group.
Bajaj recently stated: "Motorcycle production in Europe is dead; it costs 30% more than in Asia. That's why Triumph relocated all production to Thailand around twelve years ago."
Since the Ukraine war and the company's insolvency, KTM's supply chains in Europe have collapsed and some have been relocated to China. As a result, delivery times of up to two years must be accepted – instead of just a few months as before.
Neumeister's worries have not diminished in recent months. Since August 27, a 50% tariff has been in effect on all goods exported from India to the USA, making business difficult for all bikes built at Chalan near Pune by Bajaj in India. Tariffs from the EU to the USA have increased this year from 2.5 to 15 percent. This means KTM has had to raise prices and reduce profit margins.
KTM also failed to strike the deal with Dorna to supply the Moto3 motorcycles for the new "single-brand" 2028 World Championship. Dorna selected Yamaha, with its 689cc R7 twin-cylinder engines, even though KTM has won the Moto3 riders' world championship eight times since 2012 and the entry-level class has always been an important component of the "Red Bull KTM Road to MotoGP."
In 2028, KTM's talented riders will have to ride Yamaha Moto3 bikes after the Rookies Cup before moving on to MotoGP via Moto2 (with Kalex chassis and Triumph engines).
During the last twelve months, more than 2,000 employees at KTM AG have lost their jobs. And Gottfried Neumeister has to regularly emphasize in the media: "There are currently no plans to relocate production."
This, however, clearly contradicts the plans of the future majority owner, Rajiv Bajaj.
The new KTM boss recently also had to deal with the devastating diagnosis of an employee. "The situation is catastrophic, to say the least," explained a KTM employee in an interview with the Austrian daily newspaper "Heute." The brutal analysis: "We are back in exactly the same system as before the insolvency. Large suppliers no longer supply parts or only against advance payment, and even then often only after months. Vehicles are leaving the assembly line with half-finished engines and missing components. In effect, corpses are being produced."
GPOne.com reported back in September that around 22,000 half-finished new 2025 motocross bikes were sitting around in Austria.
KTM headquarters hasn't responded to these reports in detail, evasively emphasizing that since August, production has been running at least in single-shift operation on all four lines.
Neumeister repeatedly communicated contradictory figures regarding the number of units sold in the first half of the year, often comparing apples with oranges.
The fact is: the production of 230,000 motorcycles announced in December was already an illusion back then. The business plan was reduced to 150,000 units within a few months in consultation with Bajaj. And even this number is unlikely to be realized.
KTM admits that these are not easy times and that the challenges remain massive. "But we only build the latest models and continuously deliver to our dealers," is the non-binding statement from Mattighofen.
The anonymous KTM insider elaborates: "Quality or organization is hardly evident on the assembly line anymore. Not a single major supplier delivers on account anymore. Trust has only been rebuilt with a few local partners."
Other employees report that a frightening atmosphere prevailed at the recent dealer meeting.
Gottfried Neumeister, whose contract as CEO runs until August 31, 2026, is reportedly heavily preoccupied with securing his own future. His critics within the company describe him as a world champion of self-promotion.
The 48-year-old from Vienna acts as CEO of a company for the first time in his career. Most recently, he worked as CFO at the catering company Do&Co, before that in the airline business. He has only been involved in the motorcycle business since September 2024.
Pierer Mobility shares are languishing at €14.46 on the Vienna stock market, having lost a further 26.60% since January 1. Investors have lost confidence in the brand, with six out of nine analysts recommending selling the stock, three recommending holding, and none recommending buying. Pierer Mobility AG recently recorded a market capitalization of a paltry €450.47 million. In 2022, KTM generated a profit of €235 million. The stock price at that time was at €88.80.
Apart from a few highlights, things aren't going as planned for KTM in the MotoGP World Championship either. No race has been won in the dry since Catalunya 2021, and not in the wet since Buriram 2022.
The promising switch from a steel frame to a carbon chassis after the 2023 Misano GP cannot be described as a resounding success. Even the exceptionally talented Acosta lost 0.409 seconds on Pole setter Quartararo in Phillip Island qualifying.
And on Sunday, after falling back to fifth place, Acosta lamented: "I am tired of facing the same problems every weekend." The two-time world champion was referring to the increased tyre wear at KTM, which regularly causes all riders to lose positions at the finish.
KTM (298 points) only holds third place in the Constructor’s Championship behind Ducati (671) and Aprilia (345), making the brand the weakest European manufacturer.
The four current KTM riders Bastianini, Binder, Acosta, and Viñales, who finished 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th in the 2024 World Championship, are now scattered between 5th (Acosta), 12th (Binder), 14th (Bastianini), and 17th (Viñales). Bastianini and Viñales have dropped by exactly ten places on the KTM RC16 since their departures from Ducati and Aprilia.