Industrials company Liberty House Group has snapped up independent Scottish bicycle manufacturer, Shand, as part of a wider strategy to revive cycle manufacturing in the UK.
Liberty, which is executive chaired by Sanjeev Gupta, acquired road and adventure touring bike maker Shand Cycles UK for an undisclosed sum.
Shand, based in Livingston near Edinburgh, is fabricating hand-built production bikes in the UK as well as designing and supplying carbon fibre bikes manufactured by its partners.
Liberty reported, that the newly acquired group is intended to complement another of its companies in the sector, a Midlands-based mountain bike maker called Trillion.
The company will extend Shand’s manufacturing capacity at Livingston, West Lothian, while also using “the engineering expertise of its Midlands vehicle technology teams to support both Shand and Trillion to grow by developing innovative products”.
Shand and Trillion will both retain their brand identity within the newly-created Liberty Cycles division.
Liberty gained attention last year by bidding for Tata Steel’s UK assets, including the giant plant at Port Talbot, before the sale was dropped. Liberty House already has major industrial investments in Scotland, including two steels mills and an aluminium smelter.
Gupta 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.”
Steven Shand, founder of Shand Cycles, who will 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 ground-breaking things in the cycle market.
“The link up also allows us to develop some very valuable extra manufacturing capacity.”
