Marzocchi – What’s Actually Happening?

So, we all heard the story about Marzocchi being liquidated yesterday but the details were a little bit fuzzy. It’s not actually all doom and gloom.

So initially we got this news which sounded pretty devastating for the company and Marzocchi product owners –

“Lake Forest, Illinois, July 22, 2015 – Tenneco Inc. (NYSE:TEN) announced today its intention to discontinue its Marzocchi motor bike fork suspension business and its mountain bike business, and liquidate its Marzocchi operations.

These actions are subject to a consultation process with the employee representatives and in total would eliminate approximately 138 jobs. Tenneco currently employs 127 people at the Marzocchi plant in Bologna, Italy and an additional 11 people in its operations in North America and Taiwan

We sincerely regret the impact these actions would have on our Tenneco Marzocchi employees, and thank them for their tireless efforts to improve performance and reduce costs. Unfortunately, it was not enough to overcome continuing market challenges in the two-wheeler business,” said Brian Kesseler, chief operating officer, Tenneco. “We are committed to working with our employees’ representatives, and with our customers to make the transition as smooth as possible.”

However, as we all quickly scrambled to grab spares for our Marzocchi forks and shocks from anyone who stocked them we got this update –

Marzocchi News: As some of you are aware of last night’s press release that lit up the internet from Tenneco and we wanted to clear a few things up.
This morning we have spoken directly to the factory and I can confirm the following points.

• Sadly the Marzocchi moto factory in Bologna is now closed.
• Tenneco do indeed have the MTB business for sale.
• MY2016 MTB fork production is going ahead.
• New product for 2016.
• Marzocchi MTB will be at both the EUROBIKE (B1-302) and INTERBIKE shows.
• Race support continues.

Most importantly for our customers and the end consumer regardless to what may or may not happen, all forks and rear shocks sold will continue to be supported with the full WARRANTY and spare parts back up.
More news when we get it.

So, with new rumours that there is a buyer in the pipeline, it seems that mountain bikers at least, are ok for the not-to-distant future. Warranties are still valid and 2016 models are going into production. Hopefully things will come to an ultimately positive conclusion.