It's been a hellacious 12 months for KTM, as it's gone from one of the powerhouses of the industry, a titan of manufacturing and motorcycling, to nearly dying due to some serious financial screwups. Nearly everything was leveraged to the hilt to support an acquisition model that saw the company grow rapidly.
But it was overconsumption, and everything hit the proverbial fan when consumer spending fell, yet pricing and production didn't fall with it.
The brand has since been saved by Bajaj, which was already producing KTM's small-displacement motorcycles like the new 390s, and got a healthy infusion of cash to not only restart production, but also begin to pay off its creditors, and hire folks after mass layoffs. And, if you're to believe KTM's new CEO Gottfried Neumeister, in the short month after its saving, it's almost immediately on the right footing. And it's already sold more than 100,000 motorcycles this year globally. Hey, that sounds great!
