{"id":591899,"date":"2026-08-13T10:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T10:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/591899\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T10:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T10:06:10","slug":"mel-sutcliffe-in-bid-to-buy-raleigh-european-bike-group-once-sold-for-e1-6bn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/591899\/","title":{"rendered":"Mel Sutcliffe in bid to buy Raleigh-European bike group once sold for \u20ac1.6bn"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Mel Sutcliffe with Quanta Capital Junior Tour of Ireland race director, Alice Sherratt, at the 2026 edition of the race in Co Clare last month (Photo: Sean Rowe)<\/p>\n

Mel Sutcliffe, the former Irish international rider whose Quanta Capital group sponsors the Junior Tour of Ireland, has confirmed his interest in buying the Dutch headquartered Accell Group.<\/p>\n

Its interest in the group involves other investors and an, as yet, unidentified global financial institution.<\/p>\n

Accell is the parent company of a host of well known cycling brands, including the iconic Raleigh bikes. Sutcliffe 10 years ago sold his Eurotrek Raleigh Ireland company to Accell.<\/p>\n

Other brands in the Accell group include Haibike, Ghost, Lapierre, Winora, Batavus, Koga, Sparta, Babboe, Carqon, Van Nicholas, Loekie, Tunturi, Nishiki, and components brand XLC.<\/p>\n

In a statement to stickybottle, Sutcliffe\u2019s Quanta Capital – a Dublin-based investment and asset management platform – has confirmed its interest.<\/p>\n

“Accell’s portfolio represents a spectacular collection of well-known cycle brands, both globally and in Europe,\u201d said Sutcliffe, Quanta\u2019s chief executive.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur main objective will be to put the group onto a more stable footing as it has endured quite a tumultuous period of trading.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Matthew<\/p>\n

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\"Video<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe have made contact with Accell and its administrators to formalise our interest in purchasing the group.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quanta added its bid \u201cwill be made up of a number of investors and a global financial institution\u201d, with details of those other parties not being disclosed at present.<\/p>\n

Just four yeast ago, Accell was acquired by private equity firm KKR, which reportedly spent \u20ac1.56 billion.<\/p>\n

However, it was badly hit by the post-pandemic cycling industry slump and, after a failed recent sale process, it has just declared itself insolvent in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n

Sutcliffe made his international debut as a junior in 1990, riding the road race at the Worlds in Britain that year, on an Irish team that included Paul Giles, Andrew Duncan and Peter Daly.<\/p>\n

He made his last international appearance at the Le Tour de Langkawi in 1996, riding on a national team alongside R\u00e1s Tailteann winner Tommy Evans, Olympian Declan Lonergan, Richie McCauley, Barry Monaghan and David Peelo.<\/p>\n

While he was a student, he founded Eurocycles, which he expanded into a chain of stores in Ireland. He later bought Raleigh Ireland and founded Eurotrek Raleigh Ireland<\/p>\n

That latter company, Quanta says, became \u201cIreland’s largest bicycle distributor and one of the top ten in Europe\u201d before he sold the business to Raleigh and Accell Group a decade ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mel Sutcliffe with Quanta Capital Junior Tour of Ireland race director, Alice Sherratt, at the 2026 edition of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60],"class_list":["post-591899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}