Indian
bicycle major Hero Cycles Ltd has acquired a strategic stake in German premium
e-bike manufacturer HNF Group. Hero Cycles has taken this stake together with
German investment trust holding IBG Beteiligungsgesellschaft Sachsen-Anhalt
mbH.
The
new joint venture between Hero Cycles and HNF aims at emerging as a new
full-range supplier on the European e-bike market. Under the brand name
HNF-NICOLAI, HNF Group produces and sells a range of innovative and
maintenance-free e-bikes, all of which are powered by carbon belts instead of
bicycle chains.
Hero
Cycles, the world’s largest bike maker by volume has already built a strong
presence in the UK through the strategic acquisition of Avocet Sports and the
establishment of a world class Global Design Centre in Manchester. The German
acquisition marks a major step by Hero Cycles towards achieving a 5% share in
the global e-bike market by 2022.
Hero
Cycles has in recent years forayed strongly into the e-bikes space through the
brand Lectro. With Europe leading the e-bikes space with a 20 per cent
year-on-year growth, Hero aims to garner a greater chunk of this market in the
coming years.
Hero
Motors Company plans to strengthen HNF with investments in design, brand,
distribution and supply chain. HNF will assume a larger role of HMC’s global
centre of excellence for electric bicycles with the group’s global R&D
center based in Berlin. The factory in Bitterfeld will evolve to be the R&D
application center along with high-end manufacturing incorporating
state-of-the-art Kanban and Lean Production processes. Hero will support with
back-end manufacturing & supply chain from India.
While
Hero will bring in complementary strengths of low-cost automotive-quality supply
chain to HNF’s expertise, HNF’s E-bike design and engineering strength will be
leveraged for HMC’s e-bike & bicycle businesses in global geographies.
Notably,
for more than 25 years Hero Motors Company has been manufacturing OEM
transmission components for renowned German and global suppliers in the
automotive industry with its components being integral parts of prestigious
up-market products and brands such as BMW, Harley Davidson and Ducati. With
major German automotive OEMs as its customers and ZF Friedrichshafen as a JV
partner, HMC had Germany as its choice of destination for entry into the EU
market with Germany being the epicenter of e-bike industry and the largest
e-bike market in Europe.