track cycling<\/a>.<\/p>\nWorking with the USA track team will push Rapha in ways Millar feels its relationship with EF Pro Cycling did not.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Millar says the skinsuit for EF Pro Cycling was last tested in 2022. \u201cThat\u2019s an anathema to me in terms of having a high-performance suit \u2013 that you wouldn’t test every year and get it in the wind tunnel to understand what you could be doing to go faster.\u201d<\/p>\n
She says there isn’t the luxury of waiting that long in track cycling \u201cwhere every millisecond counts\u201d, and that the performance gains developed for the USA track team will eventually filter into Rapha\u2019s other products.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Financial results and kicking the “discounting drug\u201d
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Rapha CEO Fran Millar says the 2028 LA Olympic Games could have the same impact on cycling in the US as the London 2012 Games had on cycling in the UK. Emily Maye \/ Rapha <\/p>\n
Millar says there is a \u201creal confidence\u201d in Rapha for the first time in a long time. Its financial backers are supportive of the company pursuing opportunities that could be seen as risky but with high-reward potential, including partnering with USA Cycling.<\/p>\n
This may come as a surprise to those who have followed Rapha\u2019s financial results in recent years. Rapha\u2019s latest financial results reveal an annual revenue of \u00a396.2m in the year ending January 2025 and a net loss \u2013 its eighth in a row \u2013 of \u00a315.6m.<\/p>\n
However, Rapha\u2019s chief financial officer, Michelle Woolaghan, says this is not a number the company is focused on internally. Instead, Rapha is concerned by its Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortisation (EBITDA).\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2023, Rapha achieved a positive EBITDA of \u00a3900,000. For the latest results, ending in January 2025, the EBITDA has moved back to -\u00a32.6m. Woolaghan says this is due to a conscious decision to reduce the level of discounting and promotional sales.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithin the 2024 numbers, the full price sales held level and what dropped back was promotional or discounted sales. So our gross margin improved across all the channels. But nevertheless, because of that volume drop in the short term, that impacts profitability,\u201d says Woolaghan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re kind of coming off the discounting drug, I suppose,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a310 million payback\u00a0<\/p>\n
Woolaghan and Millar are also keen to explain why Rapha\u2019s results look the way they do, and a large contributing factor is amortisation, or the depreciation of goodwill and tangible assets, after it was bought by the grandsons of the Walmart founder Sam Walton, Steuart and Tom Walton, in 2017.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Woolaghan says the amortisation is roughly \u00a310 million a year: \u201cSo we just have that hit to the profits and losses every single year until we’ve paid off the kind of purchase price.\u201d She expects this will continue for the next eight to 10 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rapha has also decided to reduce the carrying value of the company \u2013 the measure of a company’s value based on its balance sheet \u2013 by \u00a3102m.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat that means in practice is when we assess the outlook of what it will take to get back to strong EBITDA and revenue growth,\u201d says Woolaghan.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Millar says this will have no impact on customers.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rapha has announced a new partnership with USA Cycling as its latest financial results reveal a net loss…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-214266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Man](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Credit-Emily-Maye-for-Rapha_Shot_08_3173_RGB.jpg\")
Rapha will manufacture kit for a range of new disciplines, including BMX racing. Emily Maye \/ Rapha <\/p>\n