Pentland buys Endura cycling brand as cycle clothing market surges

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Mar 20, 2018

Further evidence of the importance of cycling as an expanding sports category has come with news that UK brands giant Pentland has bought the Scotland-based Endura cycle clothing and accessories label. The purchase price wasn’t disclosed.

The company that operates the Speedo, Mitre, Berghaus and Canterbury brands was hailed as an "exceptional home" for the business by Endura’s founders.

Jim McFarlane and Pamela Barclay launched the label 25 years ago and said they were impressed by Pentland’s long-term outlook. Meanwhile Pentland COO Chirag Patel said Endura had "huge potential”.

The brand is worn by a number of the world’s top road, mountain bike and triathlon teams and riders and currently sponsors Movistar, whose riders include Colombia’s Nairo Quintana.

The purchase follows a flurry of activity around cycling brands in recent periods. Last year the Rapha brand was bought by two heirs to the Sam Walton (Walmart) fortune, while earlier Rossignol bought US-based Felt Bicycles, the Assos brand started to roll out internationally, and L Catterton (linked to LVMH) bought Pinarello. And this year Le Col said it would launch a Bradley Wiggins apparel brand.

Under its new ownership it seems that Endura will stay in Livingston in Scotland where it currently employs around 100 people. McFarlane and Barclay will stay in day to day control of the operation with McFarlane saying: “Endura has been my life for 25 years, so I’m understandably protective of it and dismissed numerous other approaches in the past.”

He also said that the “innovation opportunities and the shared vision of manufacturing in Scotland that could extend to other Pentland brands in future, are both hugely exciting prospects to me.”