Past
Motorcycle fraternity has a keen eye on what happens to Norton. The question here is, will it get a suitable buyer?
It all started last year in March 2019, when we were looking at the notice that Norton did receive from Companies House.
The notice said about Norton not carrying out any business or operations.
Now we come to know from Leicester Mercury about Norton working with HMRC to avoid the petition that will mostly say that Norton has not paid the vast debts that they have on them.
As per Stuart Garner, Norton Motorcycle owes £300,000 to HMRC, which is left outstanding via research & development tax relief that went in business.
Present
This is when Norton went under administration. However, now Bikeglory talks more about Kinetic Motoroyale pulling out of the process to bid.
In Southeast Asia, Kinetic Motoroyale does hold rights to build and manufacture Norton Motorcycles we had also heard they were in process to construct the 650cc Atlas and was approached by Stuart Garner.
Complex Financial Saga
However, the Commandoes and Dominators would arrive via the CBU route. Now it does look like we won’t be able to see.
There are a good number of reasons by Kinetic pulled out of the bidding process.
- After administration took over the Norton is under £40m in debt. Which itself is not a small amount. However, this was passed.
- Another thing is anyone who buys Norton rights may not be able to Norton name or the brand logo. Although Garner did own the trademark, other companies do have licensing deals with Norton, and it doesn’t matter whoever owns the brand. Two of them are Andover Norton, along with its German parent company Norton Motors. Now, these two companies have o use the Norton name and manufacture/market spares worldwide.
- Norvil and Unity Equipe are two other companies that own the rights to the Commando and Manx Norton names.
- We don’t see names of the Kinetic, India, and Jinlang and Zongshen from China about any manufacturing rights. So they are off the shelf.
Well, to talk more, Firework International had pushed Natwest for the remaining £600,000. However, they were not able to recover anything.
When all the assets were clear, and funds transfer pushed the administrators to take over.
However, the question still remains unanswered. Is there any buyer in the market who will buy Norton knowing how complicated the entire financial saga has been made.
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