Kiwi film helps Indian Motorcycle Company revival
Posted: Wed Dec 20, 2006 7:05 am
Kiwi film helps Indian Motorcycle Company revival
Wednesday, December 20, 2006 - by Nevil Gibson - National Business Review - nbr.co.nz
A New Zealand film is helping to revive an American heritage brand of motorcycle, the Indian.
Indian Motorcycle Co, founded in 1901, is next year due to start production of its first models since 1953, when the company went into bankruptcy. An attempt to resuscitate the company in the late 1990s failed.
At the helm of the latest attempt are two Harvard Business School classmates, Steve Heese and Stephen Julius, who have already successfully revived the Chris-Craft leisure boat business.
Once the dominant US manufacturer of pleasure craft, Chris-Craft also fell on hard times and even lost its brand name to a media company. The name was bought back for $US5 million when that business was sold to Rupert Murdoch in 2001.
The reborn Chris-Craft was profitable within three years and revenue is expected to top $US55 million this year.
The Indian Motorcycle business is going through a similar cycle. Mr Julius, who used to run a London-based private equity fund, snapped up the intellectual property rights, engineering and designs at an auction in 2004. In addition, he bought the tooling to make the classic bike’s distinctive parts.
Indian had been owned by a Canadian investor group and later a Boston-based private equity fund, but their attempts to make a successful business ended in Chapter 11, the American version of bankruptcy.
The company’s headquarters have been moved from California to North Carolina, near where Chris-Craft is building a new plant.
“The motorcycle market is bigger than the boating market,” Mr Heese is quoted as saying in a Fortune magazine profile of the Chris-Craft turnaround. “And there’s no question that motorcyclists are a passionate group. These are people who tattoo brand names on their body. There’s not another product category on earth that drive people to do that.”
The partners are hoping to emulate Harley-Davidson, another US motorcycle brand that nearly went bankrupt in the 1980s before it improved its manufacturing techniques and product quality in the 1980s. It is now the market leader in the US with its distinctive retro styling and cult status.
In February 2005, a year after Indian changed hands, Messrs Heese and Julius, saw a preview of The World’s Fastest Indian, a film starring Anthony Hopkins as the legendary Southlander, Bert Munro, who set a world land-speed record on a Scout in the 1960s.
The film, made by Roger Donaldson, has become New Zealand’s biggest box office success, taking more than $7 million since it opened in late 2005. According to Box Office Mojo, it has grossed $US16.5 million worldwide since its release.
Munro is the only New Zealander to have been inducted into the Ohio-based World Motorcycle Hall of Fame.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006 - by Nevil Gibson - National Business Review - nbr.co.nz
A New Zealand film is helping to revive an American heritage brand of motorcycle, the Indian.
Indian Motorcycle Co, founded in 1901, is next year due to start production of its first models since 1953, when the company went into bankruptcy. An attempt to resuscitate the company in the late 1990s failed.
At the helm of the latest attempt are two Harvard Business School classmates, Steve Heese and Stephen Julius, who have already successfully revived the Chris-Craft leisure boat business.
Once the dominant US manufacturer of pleasure craft, Chris-Craft also fell on hard times and even lost its brand name to a media company. The name was bought back for $US5 million when that business was sold to Rupert Murdoch in 2001.
The reborn Chris-Craft was profitable within three years and revenue is expected to top $US55 million this year.
The Indian Motorcycle business is going through a similar cycle. Mr Julius, who used to run a London-based private equity fund, snapped up the intellectual property rights, engineering and designs at an auction in 2004. In addition, he bought the tooling to make the classic bike’s distinctive parts.
Indian had been owned by a Canadian investor group and later a Boston-based private equity fund, but their attempts to make a successful business ended in Chapter 11, the American version of bankruptcy.
The company’s headquarters have been moved from California to North Carolina, near where Chris-Craft is building a new plant.
“The motorcycle market is bigger than the boating market,” Mr Heese is quoted as saying in a Fortune magazine profile of the Chris-Craft turnaround. “And there’s no question that motorcyclists are a passionate group. These are people who tattoo brand names on their body. There’s not another product category on earth that drive people to do that.”
The partners are hoping to emulate Harley-Davidson, another US motorcycle brand that nearly went bankrupt in the 1980s before it improved its manufacturing techniques and product quality in the 1980s. It is now the market leader in the US with its distinctive retro styling and cult status.
In February 2005, a year after Indian changed hands, Messrs Heese and Julius, saw a preview of The World’s Fastest Indian, a film starring Anthony Hopkins as the legendary Southlander, Bert Munro, who set a world land-speed record on a Scout in the 1960s.
The film, made by Roger Donaldson, has become New Zealand’s biggest box office success, taking more than $7 million since it opened in late 2005. According to Box Office Mojo, it has grossed $US16.5 million worldwide since its release.
Munro is the only New Zealander to have been inducted into the Ohio-based World Motorcycle Hall of Fame.