GT Bicycles, Schwinn Bikes and Schwinn Fitness US are up for sale. US based investment group Questor are, according to US trade insiders Bicycle Retailer, being offered either as a group or as separate units. Questor bought Schwinn in ’97, and a reportedly ‘almost bankrupt’ GT in ’98 to form Schwinn/GT as we know it.
At that time things looked good, two of the biggest brands in the world merging; they gobbled up European GT distributors including the UK’s own Caratti Sports. It couldn’t go wrong, could it?
Things didn’t exactly go schwimmingly though for Schwinn/GT Europe who lost a number of key accounts, were unable to pay the suppliers and eventually went into receivership in March this year. Currently the European company is still running, albeit on a skeleton staff, and up for sale but the price doesn’t seem to be right…
Speaking on the BikeBiz website receiver Lee Manning, in charge of handling the Schwinn/GT Europe sale, said that he’s happier to keep the company trading than accept any of the offers made so far:

“Some have been stupidly low,” he said.
“Were these people on drugs or something? We don’t accept tongue-in-cheek offers.”
We know who you are lads. Drugs? No. Beer and curry? More likely. I guess you had to give it a go, eh? There is a school of thought that says you should make an offer for the US company to get Steve Peat on one of your bikes if nothing else.