India’s New Private Equity Owners Want to Execute the Harley-Davidson Playbook – Jalopnik

Private equity firm Carolwood Capital bought Indian out from under Polaris last month. Private equity deals almost always kills the companies involvedbut Carolwood really wants to tell you that it really does have India’s interests at heart – at least that’s what Spencer Towill, head of mergers and acquisitions at Carolwood and architect of the India deal, Bloomberg said after the buyout. But even if Carolwood India wants to run profitably in the long term, some of what Towill said on the call is worrying for the company’s future.

RideApart wrote up Towill’s appearance on Bloombergwith a particular emphasis on his comments about Indian taking a Harley-Davidson-style dip into merchandising. That’s certainly concerning, but it’s also not a major problem: many manufacturers sell branded gear, either alone or in collaboration with well-known motorcycle clothing manufacturers, and we never complain about Honda for releasing Africa Twin-branded Alpinestars jackets. No, the worst problem with Carolwood’s vision is how otherwise it plans to ape Harley.

Bringing in Mike Kennedy, who will be Indian’s new CEO, was a critical part of this deal for us. Mike is, in our opinion, a titan of the motorcycle industry, and again, we are humble enough to understand that we are not experts in the motorcycle field, which is why we are incredibly excited to have him as part of our team. He has been in the motorcycle industry for 30 years, 26 of those 30 years with Harley Davidson. He certainly knows their playbook well, which is why we are extremely excited to have him as our new leader.

Mike Kennedy joined Harley-Davidson in 1998 and left the brand in 2017, interrupted only by a two-year stint at BRP. That means he worked there during the heyday of early childhood cruiser craze, the heights of “American Chopper” enthusiasm, and saw both the beginning and end of the Dyna. He witnessed the failure of the XR1200 and the café craze that he never got to take a bite of. There is a lot to learn from that.

But Harley’s playbook, especially in recent years, has largely been that more about enriching shareholders than about actually selling bicycles. It lost the only CEO who planned to broaden the brand and it won’t sell its most entry-level bike, but the company is still buying back shares – these are not good financial moves for anyone other than the owners. If that’s the playbook Carolwood wants Kennedy to lead, then it’s a book that’s great for the private equity firm, but terrible for the actual motorcycle brand. If I had to guess which Carolwood cares about more, it wouldn’t be hard to choose.