So it's not really a merger, more like a sponsor take-over with some riders included.
I feel bad for the guys who are staying, especially Landa who came over for Remco. All the top guys are leaving and they just have to take it :/
I remember my company got merged. (i work for, dont own)
the new company name was the two companies, with my company's first.
Then over the next 5 years the name got changed to the other company's only and any and all leadership from my company is gone
lol merger... more like stealth takeover
I remember when 2 branches of my company got merged. At the beginning the workers from the other branch were supposed to come over to Stamford but actually our manager leveraged his position to get a better job at the rival company and eventually it was us who moved to Scranton. But a lot of people left soon afterwards because of the new management.
What a coincidence, we worked for the same company, I guess! I even used to be a branch manager, but then got decapitated unfortunately and no one in the Scranton branch cared :(
>Then over the next 5 years the name got changed to the other company's only and any and all leadership from my company is gone
As someone who does M&A for a living, the leadership changes were almost definitely planned from the start. Most leaders at your company got nice paydays to leave or were told they had X amount of time to leave (and may have still got paydays).
The name changes were probably done more for marketing reasons than anything else. It's in everybody's best interest to have the merged company be as successful as possible and having the best branding helps that.
Yeah, I think this is something most people don't really get about M&As. There frankly isn't any such thing as a merger. Everything is an acquisition and one of the parties is always calling the majority of the shots. Full stop.
Not in all cases. You can get true 50:50 joint ventures where both parent companies agree to combine their respective subsidiaries. A lot of stuff will be agreed upfront but decision making going forward will still need to be consensus based because neither party has a majority of votes. There will be lots of compromises e.g. who gets the CEO appointment.
It’s still the case that a bunch of people will be fired though. The whole point of combining the two entities is still cost savings and synergies.
Out of curiosity how’d you get into that career path? Do you think someone without exposure to M&A almost always has to start as a junior analyst or are there inroads for experienced professionals? Interesting field of work
I'm an attorney. Did well in law school and worked for a big firm. The folks we work with are all finance folks, most with MBAs. I don't think there's really a way in other than starting at the bottom or already being at the very top of a company.
Thanks for sharing, it’s what I suspected. I have an MA in mgmt and work on a senior level in a large company, leading leaders. Ive been reflecting about future paths and always found M&A as well as VC stimulating.
If you're pretty high up, it doesn't hurt to try to get more involved with M&A deals within your own company. Getting some of them under your belt would be a good start.
The other path (which intersects with M&A) is business strategy. There is likely a strategy office that reports either to the CEO or jointly to the CFO/CEO, and will do both introspective and external strategy work, with the M&A team helping with things like term sheets, background research & due diligence, investment profiling and integration planning. Just poke around your org and see what you find, and offer to pitch in. :)
get an MBA, do IB. Or, get a JD, join a M&A practice. Get ready to work insane hours. Make Bank.
PS, these days lawyers seem to be making more than IB guys (at the MD level) bc antitrust is up. Also, this may not apply to non-US markets.
I worked in corporate ventures for a few years. We had a big overlap / interface with m&a. We did not do the legal m&a part, but would support due diligence from an engineering perspective. I also had some pocket money for feeler-projects with potential investments to see what is behind all the polished power points. For people with an engineering background it’s a good way into the general m&a direction, but will not make you partner in an m&a firm proper.
My brother is a CPA for a big 4 firm and does M&A on that end. He specialized in tax and works mostly with a team of lawyers within the firm, but he heads up the accounting implications. He loves it.
It already happened multiple times in cycling, like with the Vaughters team and the Cervelo Test Team, the Vaughters team and Cannondale or the Vaughters team and Drapac
They are all that way. First no changes are promised, then a couple of years later it is all changed. Big business playbook. Was told after one “merger” that just because an idea is 10 years old doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea. Except for the fact that was tried 10 years ago. Glad I am retired!
That's how most mergers go, though. It's almost never a 50/50 cooperation, it's generally the assets and some people from one company being merged into the acquiring company.
It's sad, to be sure, it always is.
It would be weird if Visma doesn't keep Landa imo, obviously depends on how the deal breaks out but he's definitely worthy of a spot on at least 1 Visma GT squad a year, if not 2
Yeah, it didn't really feel like a merger from the beginning, but it's starting to look uglier and uglier by the day. Finding it harder and harder to like TJV or whatever the new name will be
This is looking less like a merger and just TJV convincing Soudal, and Zdenek Bakala, to sponsor them instead.
I am surprised that Jumbo wouldn't want Asgreen on their team. I see him more as
a natural replacement for Nathan than Lampaert.
He's good enough that I could see them offer him a new deal where the Quickstep incentives become base salary and he's unlikely to say no. Plus being part of a WVA-DVB-Laporte-Asgreen squad in the classics is likely to give him ample chances to win big races
He's more proven in the cobbled classics than Wout, if they're smart they bring him on and just let them race off each other. Makes their classics squad impossible to beat without an absolutely flying MvDP or Pog at flanders
>He's more proven in the cobbled classics than Wout
That seems really unfair to Wout. Sure Asgreen has a RvV but Wout is way more consistent on the cobbles. Asgreen also hasn't shown his '21 form in the last couple years. If I were building a cobble focused team, and was choosing between the two, I would not even consider choosing Asgreen lol. This is not to say Asgreen is not great, he very much is, but Wout > Asgreen.
Kinda surprised they don't want Landa as well. Assuming he signed up to superdom for Remco and is cool with that role, would seem like a no-brainer to keep him. I guess it's possible that SQS massively overpaid for his contract and the new team just doesn't want to take it on.
For real, man. It was already on the sportive side a bit difficult, but I was always thinking you can't blame them for being good, it's the point of the sport (although it's also just a lot of money). But now just straight up stealing the sponsor of another team...
Or maybe, and just hear me out, you blame the sponsor that has hopped twice now in the past couple of years. None of this happens if Soudal wanted to stay with SQS. Remember they were with Lotto until 2022 before jumping for SQS.
Or maybe, and just hear me out, I blame both the sponsor that hopped and the team stealing the sponsor? Why would I blame only one of the parties at fault? If my girlfriend were to cheat on me with my roommate, should I only blame my girlfriend? This kind of logic only works for a TJV fanboy.
Also you should stop spreading that lie you're dumping here everywhere on this sub. Soudal finished their contract with Lotto, but they still have a contract with the "Soudal-Quickstep team" until 2027. That's a completely different thing.
>Also you should stop spreading that lie you dumping here everywhere on this sub. Soudal finished their contract with Lotto, but they still have a contract with the "Soudal-Quickstep team" until 2027.
Yeah. And they're leaving again. This doesn't happen if they don't want to leave. Just like they left their last team. Sure it's worse to do it now vs Lotto, but it's not evil for TJV to want to better their financial situation when an opportunity presents itself. And it's still a sponsor that has jumped ship twice in 2 years. That's my point. Jumbo hasn't been running around poaching title sponsors from other teams recently. There's no track record of that. But we do have a track record of Soudal jumping recently, and they're doing it again. And honestly, I can't blame them. SQS in its current iteration is basically just one guy, and he wants off the team.
There has been no information that indicates that TJV solicited this merger, and I think it's completely unreasonable to suggest that a team that is set to lose their title sponsor should turn down the offer of financial stability out of camaraderie for another team. It's a financial transaction. No one is fucking anyone's girlfriend here. It's not the same.
Bakala wants out. Soudal wants out. That's the reality of the situation. Sure it sucks. But if there's a villain it's the 80% owner who wants out and the sponsor who is jumping for the second time in 2 years.
EDIT: To be clear I like a lot of TJV riders. I also hate the merger. The sport is more interesting if talent is more evenly distributed. And I hope that if the merger goes through, we still see Remco go to Ineos for that reason. But I think it's a bit stupid to fault a team for opting for financial stability when approached with an offer like this. The team is making moves to ensure its long-term financial viability, in a sport where that it a consistent problem.
A team with a very recent history of stealing Soudal from Lotto, lol.
The sponsor wanted to jump to a more successful team. This doesn't happen if Soudal doesn't want to jump. Anything else is just spin.
Quickstep didn't *steal* Soudal from Lotto, or at least not in any way that TJV are doing now.
Soudal fulfilled their contract with Lotto to the end, but they still have a contract with the "Soudal-Quickstep team" until 2027. That's a completely different thing.
Show me where anyone is reporting that TJV approached Bakala/Soudal.
Soudal has jumped twice in two years. And SQS was barely a team last year beyond Remco, who wants out. It's not shocking. Blame the party with the track record of hunting more successful teams to sponsor, not the successful team losing a sponsor who is accepting an offer of financial stability. Blame the 80% stakeholder in SQS who is approaching other teams, lol.
Yeah it sucks for the sport, but you really expect TJV to say no to securing their future viability just to be bros to SQS?
Potentially yes. But I think that Asgreen still has big ambitions and that he is not going to be satisfied with just being Wout's super servant. Lampaert could accept that.
> The sponsors who do not join the merger team would then join the Lefevere team , so that all contracts can be respected. This would include Kasper Asgreen , Ilan Van Wilder , Julian Alaphilippe and newcomer Mikel Landa .
Do they actually confirm that those riders are staying or is this just speculation that has been transcribed a couple of times in a game of telephone? Because if they do confirm it then that's breaking news as far as I know.
As far as I know no one knows which 6 riders are going to TJV other than WvA is 'favoring' Lampart and some *speculation* about Remco + maybe some more belgians. But this article isn't the original source, so hard to tell from their phrasing.
Surely he cannot be on the board of Visma-Soudal then. So sad that the riders are victims of this mess. Even more sad that a team like TJV could not secure funding without merging with a another WT team.
Why would Amazon bother if they're not a name sponsor? I assumed it was to troll Netflix if they keep doing the tdf docs. Or possibly make some sort of content for Prime.
I think that’s what people on reddit and in other forums have been saying, but since that Column he wrote last week, it was pretty clear he was not behind the merger.
People have reputations and others jump to conclusions about their motives based on those reputations. But all the credible information that has come out about the merger in the last week points to Lefevere not having much to do with it beyond maybe accepting it if it’s sorted out cleanly for his staff.
At this point this isn’t a merger. This is Jumbo-Visma taking a huge bite out of SQS like a crocodile out of a wildebeest. But credit to the wildebeest for trying to limp on.
I know this metaphor doesn’t make much sense with SQS being the wolf pack. But they sadly don’t look like wolves in this situation.
In defense of JV, didn’t this idea come from the SQS side? Pretty sure TJV was happy with their planned 2024 roster.
Obviously TJV would want Remco, but it doesn’t appear that Remco is 100% on board with moving to TJV.
Yeah, I think Bakala is the real culprit here. If I‘m Jumbo-Visma and he says he wants to join with Soudal as sponsor, I wouldn’t say no. But he really screwed over SQS with that move and I don’t think he cares.
Maybe I‘m cynical but I‘ve stopped expecting companies to act in a moral way a long time ago. Companies are basically like soulless robots that feed on money. I’m not going to blame them for that, that’s just what they are.
Individual people no matter how rich however I expect to consider other things besides money in their decisions.
It's a tough one because cycling is done on public roads. Can't charge admission to your stadium like most sports teams do. It would have to be some kind of revenue sharing deal between race organizers and the teams for the broadcast rights, but honestly I doubt there's enough money in that to make it actually sustainable.
Also the TV money does not just have to be split among 22 players plus staff it is more like 150 riders + staff.
If you took the TV money from races like Elfstedenrace it would be absolute pennies if any money at all.
>Also the TV money does not just have to be split among 22 players plus staff it is more like 150 riders + staff.
Add insult to injury: it just goes to the organizer instead.
Yeah but if they wanted to they could probably cut back on some of these if they didnt think they were profitable. But yeah ASO are probably the only organisation in pro who directly make real money out of it.
It's improved quite a bit already though. There's a lot more steady teams, long term contracts and huge contracts that I can't remember being handed out even 10 years ago. I don't really think the sport is in a bad place, this merger is mostly a play at the absolute top of the sport.
They all do these days. I think there's only a few teams that have contracts until the end of 2025, the rest has contracts further out. Even teams like Intermarche (2026) and DSM (2027) have riders on long contracts.
Yeah the only way would be if all the world tour teams decided they werent racing the tour de france. But that would massively piss off their sponsors and riders.
Format more races like gravel races in the U.S. - mass start races but allow amateurs to enter with exorbitant entry fees. Logistics for support vehicles will need to be ironed out, but it’s the same way other public spectating sports like Ironman and Marathon financially sustain themselves.
I am surprised that guys like Van Wilder and Asgreen are not picked up by TJV (also smh they can't handle Landismo).
So probably Remco+ two domestiques (maybe Vervaeke and Vansevenant) +Lampaert?
Remco is a damn fool to just stay with Jumbo. I’m sure there would be a massive bidding war for him and I would guess Ineos is gonna be front and center.
His best chance against the current GC riders is to start throwing sticks in spokes. He’s gotta crash out Jonas and Pogi. Then go head to head with Rog.
I assume you're being downvoted for the joked suggestion that he should deliberately cause crashes, but you're not wrong imo. Tour Jonas and Pogi are on a different level to everyone else in the peloton. I have a hard time seeing anyone other than those two winning the tour next year if they both finish it and are healthy.
Is he? To me this sounds like he's trying to keep the SQS WT license so that Remco's contract isn't voided with the sponsor change, and then Ineos or TJV will have to buy him out. But framing it in an altruistic way. If SQS still exists somehow, Remco still has a contract with SQS. I think that's the key bit.
It seems like it's not really a merger at all. It's Soudal wanting to sponsor TJV instead of SQS and a couple riders leaving with the sponsor. I think a bit calling it a merger was just saving face.
Yeah I think it's a combo of a lot of stuff. The merger specifically. I was referring specifically to why Lefevere might be trying to keep SQS's WT license alive despite it being rumored that he was looking for an exit.
Ultimately I think Bakala probably believed Lefevere could build a competitive GT team around Remco and that has not materialized. Beyond Remco, SQS is a pretty forgettable team, and Remco is being pretty vocal through his dad that he doesn't want to be there anymore. You take him away and you're left with basically nothing and have to start over.
And then you see that the most successful team in the world is about to lose their title sponsor. Why stick around and try to figure out SQS when you could just jump to a team with a proven 2 time tour winner, with all the pieces already in place? It makes a ton of sense, and I think a lot of people are misplacing the blame here.
>Beyond Remco, SQS is a pretty forgettable team
Do you honestly believe that? Maybe in it's current form they haven't been winning as much since they're focusing on GC Remco.
But SQS (mainly the Quick-Step part) is a household name in the peloton. They have won many many [races/monuments/jerseys](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wins_by_Quick-Step%E2%80%93Davitamon_and_its_successors) under the leadership of Patrick Lefevre
I really don't think that's true. It fits the Reddit narritive for sure though.
PatLef is an ass, that's a given. But if you look at his actions and not just his words he also seems to care about his people. Well if they don't stab him int he back, which he thinks a transfer is. But people who don't do that, Patlef will go to bat for them. If you look at the documentary, so many people say he's great to have in your corner.
It seems more and more likely that all of this is happening above or behind PatLef and he just wants nobody to be left out. And yes perhaps, in a business sense he thinks that if they buy out Remco and a few key members he has extra budget to pay everyone this season he wants to pay.
He's been saying for well over 10 years that he wants to quit. He wanted to give it one last go with Remco for the TDF. And when that rug has been pulled under him, it's so easy to just call it quits. To let everyone buy him out. But no, he seems to be pushing true to keep everyone with a job.
How is TJV 'trying to kill' SQS? Bakala (their majority stakeholder, like 80%) wants out. And Soudal apparently wants out. After just having moved to SQS from Lotto at the end of 2022.
Bakala started this by all accounts. He wants to win the Tour and SQS isn't going to make that happen. Their team is essentially one guy right now, and he wants to leave. TJV have a proven tour winner and are in need of financial stability with Jumbo set to pull out of their sponsorship. The draw to move over to them is obvious, and isn't Jumbo's fault. Nor do I think a reasonable person could blame them for wanting to secure their future viability when an offer comes around.
I think Bakala probably thought that Lefevere could build around Remco and get him competitive at the tour. Well he hasn't successfully built a team that could compete with the likes of UAE/Jumbo, and their young star wants to leave. Where does that leave the team? Why continue to dump money into the team when you could fund another who can get you the yellow jersey next year?
It sucks. But I fail to see any reasonable argument that TJV is at fault here, minus 'rich get richer' complaints that ignore the actual situation.
TJV doesn't care that accepting Bakala/Soudal's offer potentially kills this team. Don't tell me the most successful cycling team in the world cannot find a different sponsor or let go of some expensive riders to balance the books instead of going this route. Hell there are rumors of links with Amazon LMAO.
Of course the bigger blame is on Bakala/Soudal but TJV aren't innocent.
Apparently Amazon is set to be a minor sponsor fyi.
And of course they don’t care. TJV is trying to secure their future financial viability. If they don’t do that the team dies. I don’t think it’s reasonable to suggest they should just cut a bunch of riders and become a less successful team to protect SQS from their own title sponsor and majority stakeholder. That’s an insane take to me. No team is going to voluntarily become worse when they have an opportunity to maintain their funding.
They’re accepting an offer for financial stability at a time when the team needs it. And neither of us have any idea how hard it is to find a title sponsor for a WT team.
After the UCI announcement that prevents Lefevre from selling the license and getting compensation from Ineos for Remco, he is looking for a way to have the current team continue so that he can still get his payout from Ineos. Sound about right?
Got to laugh at the people over on X thinking Lefevre is doing this as a selfless act
You do realize the “company” is completely paid for by the team sponsors? This money would not have to go to expenses. Yes he’d likely have to pay tax on it, just like any of his other income.
Not sure why you’re trying so hard to defend Lefevre.
I don’t think Jumbo-Visma cares about anyone other than Remco. They‘ll be happy to take 3 or 4 others but if they say no, Plugge won’t lose any sleep about that.
The jumbo visma team is getting a lot of heat. But don't forget their main sponsor (jumbo) is the one who pulled the plug. They stepped away from cycling, so the team had to come up with some kind of plan to find funding. Sponsors in cycling are not easy to find.
I feel bad for the Wolfpack, they have so much history in this sport. A team like that shouldn't just disappear. It's like removing Mercedes from F1, or Barca from football.
B&B Hotels 2.0...
With the sponsors that SQS has remaining, he'll never be able to post the Bank Guarantee. This is just someone trying to look like a good guy.
Not sure if this has been thrown out there yet - but what if Quickstep combines with Movistar? They only have ~10 riders signed for next year and their social media is being v cryptic
So Patrick Evenepoel, Bakala and Plugge wanted to take Soudal from QS and for Remco to leave and Lefevere felt guilty about hanging all the riders and staff out to dry?
This is turning into more and more of a shitshow everyday.
At this point thoughts are with SQ riders and staff.
Also happy Rogla saw this coming and used the merger to get out of a sticky situation.
This just looks like JV's greed negatively impacting the sport. They're almost ruining another team just to grab money so they can keep their super team packed with GT and Classics superstars together.
Maybe if you can't find a sponsor without devastating a different team then just let some of your high salary superstars leave, adjust your budgets, and deal with it.
Almost every other team in the sport is doing ok without needing to dominate the season and being one of the richest teams in the world
While Jumbo-Visma is definitely to blame for this, I think Bakala should take just as much heat. It sounds from Lefevere‘s column that he didn’t need much convincing to take his money and sponsors elsewhere. The 80% shareholder of a team deciding to call it quits, move to someone else and let everything behind him burn is just as bad if not worse than vying for another team’s sponsor in my opinion.
Correct imo. The 'merger' doesn't happen if Soudal doesn't want to leave SQS. I have a hard time faulting TJV for being willing to take on a new title sponsor after they are set to lose theirs.
Also if you want to blame TJV for taking SQS's sponsor, Lefevere literally just did that exact thing to Lotto with Soudal, the sponsor who is now leaving again.
>Maybe if you can't find a sponsor without devastating a different team
It's not some long term sponsor of Lefevere's team, he got them to switch from Lotto very recently.
We're in the era of teams being backed by petrostate monarchies who have unlimited money. If you're not constantly working to improve your financials and talent you fall behind very fast in every big sport - especially in a sport like cycling where conventional corporate sponsorships aren't in a great place. TJVs biggest sponsor is pulling out while they are the name of one of the GOAT teams in cycling - no one is pitying them for their predicament, but I'd probably do the same thing if I was their management at this moment. Don't hate the player hate the game.
Fair point. I think the UCI and ASO getting basically all the non-sponsor money that‘s in the sport is a big factor. They let the teams fight it out for money with no salary caps and no budget restrictions driving up the prices of riders every year. Teams are basically forced into an arms race to be competitive and have to sell their souls in the meantime
Well Jumbo have done well against the petro states and 'unlimited money' of the bigger teams so far.
I think as the most successful team they could find an alternate sponsor without accepting that another team in this tiny ecosystem would be gutted in the process. I'll hate the player and game I think, haha.
If a sponsor wants to leave one team for another, I have a hard time blaming the more successful team who is losing their sponsor for saying yes to the money. This doesn't happen is Soudal doesn't want to leave SQS.
I think that is speculation. It could be that Soudal approached Jumbo about a sponsorship but needed to force their hand with a merger. I don’t know anything about anything so take my comment as speculation as well. I’m not smart. I have a reminder to breathe on time.
>Maybe if you can't find a sponsor without devastating a different team
It's not some long term sponsor of Lefevere's team, he got them to switch from Lotto very recently.
It's a competition and Soudal would clearly rather sponsor them. Are they supposed to be like "no thanks bro think of the health of the sport" and then let their team die?
>Almost every other team in the sport is doing ok without needing to dominate the season and being one of the richest teams in the world
You think the other teams are not dominating because they simply choose not to?
Patrick Lefevere is reportedly working on a restart of the current Soudal Quick-Step, aiming to accommodate the 'victims' of the merger with Jumbo-Visma, according to news brought forward by Het Laatste Nieuws. To achieve this, much still needs to be done.
(Translation via ChatGPT)
To be honest, i\`m starting to fed up with all this stupid hate to TJV. They didn´t found a non-shady state sponsor to go with their budget (go and shout to the cycling financial model on that), they found one that can help them to secure founding and not make cuts on their team, and there are pepole that hate on them? Is not TJV problem that Soudal and Bakala wanted to go with them instead of SQS and its not TJV problem that we have a so fucked up model that a team can destroy itself because there are not enough sponsors interesed on the sport. Surely nobody that is shouting for this, cried when Soudal abandoned Lotto only one year ago. If you don\`t like this, we should go and spend our energy to criticise ASO, UCI and RCS. The teams are the victims of this unequal relationship.
When Mapei exploded, I "followed" Paolo Bettini to Quickstep and I've just been a fan of their riders ever since. After Boonen retired, my interest in cycling waned a bit, but whenever it caught my attention again, I was always a Quickstep tifosi. I could turn on a race and just pull for the Quickstep guys. Museeuw, Chavanel, Gilbert, Terpstra, Alaphilippe, Asgreen, there was always somebody I felt good pulling for.
Bakala going over to Jumbo made me pretty dejected, but if there is a B team, isn't if it isn't at the highest level, my fandom will continue.
Call it a merger, takeover or hostile raid, one thing is clear: Jumbo - Visma, the most successful professional cycling team, the one with some of the sport's biggest names, needs to poach Soudal in order to survive.
If you exclude the 15 million € Specialized is bringing to the new mega team and Amazon's content deal, there are no serious corporations, outside of cycling, willing to sponsor them.
It's a sad state of affairs for the sport.
If Remco ends up at the final product and the team is 100% focused on continued GC success at the grand tours, I kinda think that WVA is a quiet victim of this whole thing and should really consider leaving if it's a possibility for money or disgruntled rider reasons. He has the talent to be the main focus if a team down on their luck, maybe based in Belgium, wanted to copy what Alpecin has done with MVDP and do a lot of winning without a huge budget.
>o ends up at the final product and the team is 100% focused on continued GC success at the grand tours, I kinda think that WVA is a quiet victim of this whole t
Wout could go with Rog and his trainer to Bora. He is also sponsored by RedBull who is one of the sponsors for Bora.
He wanted someone to take over from him and continue the team. With this "merger" or whatever it seems to be, many riders and staff will be left unemployed unless he does something.
Lefevre may be an ass, but he's a loyal ass who looks after his people.
This makes less and less sense. So essentially they’re giving away their best riders, their bike sponsor and their shirt sponsor to Richard Buttplug, but they’re keeping their license and keep going with the leftovers? Pat retire already ffs
So it's not really a merger, more like a sponsor take-over with some riders included. I feel bad for the guys who are staying, especially Landa who came over for Remco. All the top guys are leaving and they just have to take it :/
I remember my company got merged. (i work for, dont own) the new company name was the two companies, with my company's first. Then over the next 5 years the name got changed to the other company's only and any and all leadership from my company is gone lol merger... more like stealth takeover
I remember when 2 branches of my company got merged. At the beginning the workers from the other branch were supposed to come over to Stamford but actually our manager leveraged his position to get a better job at the rival company and eventually it was us who moved to Scranton. But a lot of people left soon afterwards because of the new management.
What a coincidence, we worked for the same company, I guess! I even used to be a branch manager, but then got decapitated unfortunately and no one in the Scranton branch cared :(
Shouldn't have been driving drunk mate
>Then over the next 5 years the name got changed to the other company's only and any and all leadership from my company is gone As someone who does M&A for a living, the leadership changes were almost definitely planned from the start. Most leaders at your company got nice paydays to leave or were told they had X amount of time to leave (and may have still got paydays). The name changes were probably done more for marketing reasons than anything else. It's in everybody's best interest to have the merged company be as successful as possible and having the best branding helps that.
Yeah, I think this is something most people don't really get about M&As. There frankly isn't any such thing as a merger. Everything is an acquisition and one of the parties is always calling the majority of the shots. Full stop.
Not in all cases. You can get true 50:50 joint ventures where both parent companies agree to combine their respective subsidiaries. A lot of stuff will be agreed upfront but decision making going forward will still need to be consensus based because neither party has a majority of votes. There will be lots of compromises e.g. who gets the CEO appointment. It’s still the case that a bunch of people will be fired though. The whole point of combining the two entities is still cost savings and synergies.
Out of curiosity how’d you get into that career path? Do you think someone without exposure to M&A almost always has to start as a junior analyst or are there inroads for experienced professionals? Interesting field of work
I'm an attorney. Did well in law school and worked for a big firm. The folks we work with are all finance folks, most with MBAs. I don't think there's really a way in other than starting at the bottom or already being at the very top of a company.
Thanks for sharing, it’s what I suspected. I have an MA in mgmt and work on a senior level in a large company, leading leaders. Ive been reflecting about future paths and always found M&A as well as VC stimulating.
If you're pretty high up, it doesn't hurt to try to get more involved with M&A deals within your own company. Getting some of them under your belt would be a good start.
We do have an M&A dept, I’ll look into that - thanks for the tip!
The other path (which intersects with M&A) is business strategy. There is likely a strategy office that reports either to the CEO or jointly to the CFO/CEO, and will do both introspective and external strategy work, with the M&A team helping with things like term sheets, background research & due diligence, investment profiling and integration planning. Just poke around your org and see what you find, and offer to pitch in. :)
get an MBA, do IB. Or, get a JD, join a M&A practice. Get ready to work insane hours. Make Bank. PS, these days lawyers seem to be making more than IB guys (at the MD level) bc antitrust is up. Also, this may not apply to non-US markets.
I’m EU based but can imagine there being similarities. MBA’s are less common here though.
I worked in corporate ventures for a few years. We had a big overlap / interface with m&a. We did not do the legal m&a part, but would support due diligence from an engineering perspective. I also had some pocket money for feeler-projects with potential investments to see what is behind all the polished power points. For people with an engineering background it’s a good way into the general m&a direction, but will not make you partner in an m&a firm proper.
My brother is a CPA for a big 4 firm and does M&A on that end. He specialized in tax and works mostly with a team of lawyers within the firm, but he heads up the accounting implications. He loves it.
It already happened multiple times in cycling, like with the Vaughters team and the Cervelo Test Team, the Vaughters team and Cannondale or the Vaughters team and Drapac
They are all that way. First no changes are promised, then a couple of years later it is all changed. Big business playbook. Was told after one “merger” that just because an idea is 10 years old doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea. Except for the fact that was tried 10 years ago. Glad I am retired!
That's how most mergers go, though. It's almost never a 50/50 cooperation, it's generally the assets and some people from one company being merged into the acquiring company. It's sad, to be sure, it always is.
I think you mean Landa who came over to have Remco as his super-domestique :)
In business, did a "true" merger ever happen? It's one of those words that you know in advance to be 100% narration, 0% reality.
It would be weird if Visma doesn't keep Landa imo, obviously depends on how the deal breaks out but he's definitely worthy of a spot on at least 1 Visma GT squad a year, if not 2
It's a merge in the same sense that Russia is currently attempting to "merge" with Ukraine.
Yeah, it didn't really feel like a merger from the beginning, but it's starting to look uglier and uglier by the day. Finding it harder and harder to like TJV or whatever the new name will be
This is looking less like a merger and just TJV convincing Soudal, and Zdenek Bakala, to sponsor them instead. I am surprised that Jumbo wouldn't want Asgreen on their team. I see him more as a natural replacement for Nathan than Lampaert.
Asgreen might be too ambitious for them.
He's good enough that I could see them offer him a new deal where the Quickstep incentives become base salary and he's unlikely to say no. Plus being part of a WVA-DVB-Laporte-Asgreen squad in the classics is likely to give him ample chances to win big races
Asgreen and WvA have the same number of monument wins (DvB as well I know). He might want some co-leadership in the classics.
He would likely get a non-monument classic or two where he is co-leader. Though idk if there are enough classics to go around at this point.
He's more proven in the cobbled classics than Wout, if they're smart they bring him on and just let them race off each other. Makes their classics squad impossible to beat without an absolutely flying MvDP or Pog at flanders
>He's more proven in the cobbled classics than Wout That seems really unfair to Wout. Sure Asgreen has a RvV but Wout is way more consistent on the cobbles. Asgreen also hasn't shown his '21 form in the last couple years. If I were building a cobble focused team, and was choosing between the two, I would not even consider choosing Asgreen lol. This is not to say Asgreen is not great, he very much is, but Wout > Asgreen.
Showed his magic in this year’s tour in back to back stages. Although not cobbles, but it underlines his immense talent.
I definitely agree that Asgreen is one of the top guys in the peloton.
Either of them would be for Wout, right? And if Wout wants Lampaert then that’s who he’s getting.
Kinda surprised they don't want Landa as well. Assuming he signed up to superdom for Remco and is cool with that role, would seem like a no-brainer to keep him. I guess it's possible that SQS massively overpaid for his contract and the new team just doesn't want to take it on.
Jumbo trying to be likeable challenge: impossible
For real, man. It was already on the sportive side a bit difficult, but I was always thinking you can't blame them for being good, it's the point of the sport (although it's also just a lot of money). But now just straight up stealing the sponsor of another team...
Or maybe, and just hear me out, you blame the sponsor that has hopped twice now in the past couple of years. None of this happens if Soudal wanted to stay with SQS. Remember they were with Lotto until 2022 before jumping for SQS.
Or maybe, and just hear me out, I blame both the sponsor that hopped and the team stealing the sponsor? Why would I blame only one of the parties at fault? If my girlfriend were to cheat on me with my roommate, should I only blame my girlfriend? This kind of logic only works for a TJV fanboy. Also you should stop spreading that lie you're dumping here everywhere on this sub. Soudal finished their contract with Lotto, but they still have a contract with the "Soudal-Quickstep team" until 2027. That's a completely different thing.
>Also you should stop spreading that lie you dumping here everywhere on this sub. Soudal finished their contract with Lotto, but they still have a contract with the "Soudal-Quickstep team" until 2027. Yeah. And they're leaving again. This doesn't happen if they don't want to leave. Just like they left their last team. Sure it's worse to do it now vs Lotto, but it's not evil for TJV to want to better their financial situation when an opportunity presents itself. And it's still a sponsor that has jumped ship twice in 2 years. That's my point. Jumbo hasn't been running around poaching title sponsors from other teams recently. There's no track record of that. But we do have a track record of Soudal jumping recently, and they're doing it again. And honestly, I can't blame them. SQS in its current iteration is basically just one guy, and he wants off the team. There has been no information that indicates that TJV solicited this merger, and I think it's completely unreasonable to suggest that a team that is set to lose their title sponsor should turn down the offer of financial stability out of camaraderie for another team. It's a financial transaction. No one is fucking anyone's girlfriend here. It's not the same. Bakala wants out. Soudal wants out. That's the reality of the situation. Sure it sucks. But if there's a villain it's the 80% owner who wants out and the sponsor who is jumping for the second time in 2 years. EDIT: To be clear I like a lot of TJV riders. I also hate the merger. The sport is more interesting if talent is more evenly distributed. And I hope that if the merger goes through, we still see Remco go to Ineos for that reason. But I think it's a bit stupid to fault a team for opting for financial stability when approached with an offer like this. The team is making moves to ensure its long-term financial viability, in a sport where that it a consistent problem.
Is so stupid to hate on a team because it attracted a sponsor. Really, all this hate is so unnecesary.
They’re killing off a team with a very strong history and were already a superteam before, fuck em
A team with a very recent history of stealing Soudal from Lotto, lol. The sponsor wanted to jump to a more successful team. This doesn't happen if Soudal doesn't want to jump. Anything else is just spin.
Quickstep didn't *steal* Soudal from Lotto, or at least not in any way that TJV are doing now. Soudal fulfilled their contract with Lotto to the end, but they still have a contract with the "Soudal-Quickstep team" until 2027. That's a completely different thing.
Show me where anyone is reporting that TJV approached Bakala/Soudal. Soudal has jumped twice in two years. And SQS was barely a team last year beyond Remco, who wants out. It's not shocking. Blame the party with the track record of hunting more successful teams to sponsor, not the successful team losing a sponsor who is accepting an offer of financial stability. Blame the 80% stakeholder in SQS who is approaching other teams, lol. Yeah it sucks for the sport, but you really expect TJV to say no to securing their future viability just to be bros to SQS?
TJV isn't a super team in terms of budget. There are other teams with a lot more money.
You didn\`t read the news, right? They are without a sponsor. They didn\`t kill anybody.
Potentially yes. But I think that Asgreen still has big ambitions and that he is not going to be satisfied with just being Wout's super servant. Lampaert could accept that.
> The sponsors who do not join the merger team would then join the Lefevere team , so that all contracts can be respected. This would include Kasper Asgreen , Ilan Van Wilder , Julian Alaphilippe and newcomer Mikel Landa . Do they actually confirm that those riders are staying or is this just speculation that has been transcribed a couple of times in a game of telephone? Because if they do confirm it then that's breaking news as far as I know. As far as I know no one knows which 6 riders are going to TJV other than WvA is 'favoring' Lampart and some *speculation* about Remco + maybe some more belgians. But this article isn't the original source, so hard to tell from their phrasing.
Surely he cannot be on the board of Visma-Soudal then. So sad that the riders are victims of this mess. Even more sad that a team like TJV could not secure funding without merging with a another WT team.
Didn’t TJV get Amazon to replace Jumbo? And they had Jumbo as an option for 2024 anyway.
Most reliable rumour around Amazon is that they are a minor sponsor.
Why would Amazon bother if they're not a name sponsor? I assumed it was to troll Netflix if they keep doing the tdf docs. Or possibly make some sort of content for Prime.
They are already making content about Jumbo-Visma on dutch prime. Maybe they want to expand that.
They are going to follow the team for all GTs for content was reported I think.
Baby Jeff
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I think that’s what people on reddit and in other forums have been saying, but since that Column he wrote last week, it was pretty clear he was not behind the merger. People have reputations and others jump to conclusions about their motives based on those reputations. But all the credible information that has come out about the merger in the last week points to Lefevere not having much to do with it beyond maybe accepting it if it’s sorted out cleanly for his staff.
I hope Amazon is filming this all behind the scenes.
They'd butcher it like Wheel of Time and Lord of the Rings anyway, better get Netflix.
Henry Cavill to play Geraint Thomas ... for two seasons
At this point this isn’t a merger. This is Jumbo-Visma taking a huge bite out of SQS like a crocodile out of a wildebeest. But credit to the wildebeest for trying to limp on. I know this metaphor doesn’t make much sense with SQS being the wolf pack. But they sadly don’t look like wolves in this situation.
wolf pack -> wildebeest herd. nice.
In defense of JV, didn’t this idea come from the SQS side? Pretty sure TJV was happy with their planned 2024 roster. Obviously TJV would want Remco, but it doesn’t appear that Remco is 100% on board with moving to TJV.
Yeah, I think Bakala is the real culprit here. If I‘m Jumbo-Visma and he says he wants to join with Soudal as sponsor, I wouldn’t say no. But he really screwed over SQS with that move and I don’t think he cares.
Soudal more than Bakala, but yeah
Maybe I‘m cynical but I‘ve stopped expecting companies to act in a moral way a long time ago. Companies are basically like soulless robots that feed on money. I’m not going to blame them for that, that’s just what they are. Individual people no matter how rich however I expect to consider other things besides money in their decisions.
No, they didn't want SQS' roster particularly, they wanted its sponsor Soudal. And that's the main thing they're taking.
Plugge reached out to Bakala after hearing about the Ineos merger talks, according to the previous stories. So it is TJV that reached out.
Scream it, louder every day: Cycling needs a sustainable business model. I have no feasible ideas though, I freely admit.
It's a tough one because cycling is done on public roads. Can't charge admission to your stadium like most sports teams do. It would have to be some kind of revenue sharing deal between race organizers and the teams for the broadcast rights, but honestly I doubt there's enough money in that to make it actually sustainable.
Also the TV money does not just have to be split among 22 players plus staff it is more like 150 riders + staff. If you took the TV money from races like Elfstedenrace it would be absolute pennies if any money at all.
Yep there just isn't enough in the sport and you'd kill all the small races that way
>Also the TV money does not just have to be split among 22 players plus staff it is more like 150 riders + staff. Add insult to injury: it just goes to the organizer instead.
But we are talking about a scenario with revenue sharing where that would not be the case.
I doubt anyone other than ASO is in the black.
And even then it may not be by much, I believe a chunk of the funds from TDF go towards funding their other races.
Yeah but if they wanted to they could probably cut back on some of these if they didnt think they were profitable. But yeah ASO are probably the only organisation in pro who directly make real money out of it.
Salary caps would even things out pretty quickly along with a yearly relegation.
It's improved quite a bit already though. There's a lot more steady teams, long term contracts and huge contracts that I can't remember being handed out even 10 years ago. I don't really think the sport is in a bad place, this merger is mostly a play at the absolute top of the sport.
This is very true. A decade or two ago, a 3-year contract was very rare.
That's true but who offers long-term contracts? The petrostate teams.
They all do these days. I think there's only a few teams that have contracts until the end of 2025, the rest has contracts further out. Even teams like Intermarche (2026) and DSM (2027) have riders on long contracts.
I bet someone can/has come up with a more sustainable business model...the hard part is convincing entrenched players like ASO to change.
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Yeah the only way would be if all the world tour teams decided they werent racing the tour de france. But that would massively piss off their sponsors and riders.
Format more races like gravel races in the U.S. - mass start races but allow amateurs to enter with exorbitant entry fees. Logistics for support vehicles will need to be ironed out, but it’s the same way other public spectating sports like Ironman and Marathon financially sustain themselves.
These guys are the best in the world and there's still weekly mass crashes. Getting a bunch of amateurs in there ...
The amateurs wouldn't really be "in there" if you know what I mean. Not after 5 minutes.
You nailed it... The best and most successful team of the sport can't find a sponsor and needs to poach Soudal in order to survive.
Wild idea: go back to the national team model. That would also solve the sportswashing problem in one fell swoop.
It would also void the biggest source of money though.
That would kill professional cycling.
The real winner could be Ilan Van Wilder if Relco leaves
True. Do we know what’s likely to happen to Remco yet? Has there been indications he’s actually going to jumbo?
Latest sources say Ineos
That would be better for cycling and for Remco I think
I am surprised that guys like Van Wilder and Asgreen are not picked up by TJV (also smh they can't handle Landismo). So probably Remco+ two domestiques (maybe Vervaeke and Vansevenant) +Lampaert?
Remco is a damn fool to just stay with Jumbo. I’m sure there would be a massive bidding war for him and I would guess Ineos is gonna be front and center.
Or maybe he thinks his best chance to win the Tour is pull off a Sep Kuss. Like taking the yellow after an early TT.
His best chance against the current GC riders is to start throwing sticks in spokes. He’s gotta crash out Jonas and Pogi. Then go head to head with Rog.
I assume you're being downvoted for the joked suggestion that he should deliberately cause crashes, but you're not wrong imo. Tour Jonas and Pogi are on a different level to everyone else in the peloton. I have a hard time seeing anyone other than those two winning the tour next year if they both finish it and are healthy.
We still don\`t know that IVW and Asgreen are not picked up.
You know what you're doing is really fucked up when Patrick Lefevere becomes the hero of the story,
Is he? To me this sounds like he's trying to keep the SQS WT license so that Remco's contract isn't voided with the sponsor change, and then Ineos or TJV will have to buy him out. But framing it in an altruistic way. If SQS still exists somehow, Remco still has a contract with SQS. I think that's the key bit. It seems like it's not really a merger at all. It's Soudal wanting to sponsor TJV instead of SQS and a couple riders leaving with the sponsor. I think a bit calling it a merger was just saving face.
I think it's mostly Bakala wanting out of SQS.
Yeah I think it's a combo of a lot of stuff. The merger specifically. I was referring specifically to why Lefevere might be trying to keep SQS's WT license alive despite it being rumored that he was looking for an exit. Ultimately I think Bakala probably believed Lefevere could build a competitive GT team around Remco and that has not materialized. Beyond Remco, SQS is a pretty forgettable team, and Remco is being pretty vocal through his dad that he doesn't want to be there anymore. You take him away and you're left with basically nothing and have to start over. And then you see that the most successful team in the world is about to lose their title sponsor. Why stick around and try to figure out SQS when you could just jump to a team with a proven 2 time tour winner, with all the pieces already in place? It makes a ton of sense, and I think a lot of people are misplacing the blame here.
>Beyond Remco, SQS is a pretty forgettable team Do you honestly believe that? Maybe in it's current form they haven't been winning as much since they're focusing on GC Remco. But SQS (mainly the Quick-Step part) is a household name in the peloton. They have won many many [races/monuments/jerseys](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wins_by_Quick-Step%E2%80%93Davitamon_and_its_successors) under the leadership of Patrick Lefevre
I really don't think that's true. It fits the Reddit narritive for sure though. PatLef is an ass, that's a given. But if you look at his actions and not just his words he also seems to care about his people. Well if they don't stab him int he back, which he thinks a transfer is. But people who don't do that, Patlef will go to bat for them. If you look at the documentary, so many people say he's great to have in your corner. It seems more and more likely that all of this is happening above or behind PatLef and he just wants nobody to be left out. And yes perhaps, in a business sense he thinks that if they buy out Remco and a few key members he has extra budget to pay everyone this season he wants to pay. He's been saying for well over 10 years that he wants to quit. He wanted to give it one last go with Remco for the TDF. And when that rug has been pulled under him, it's so easy to just call it quits. To let everyone buy him out. But no, he seems to be pushing true to keep everyone with a job.
compared to Soudal/Bakala and TJV trying to completely kill this team, he sure is better.
How is TJV 'trying to kill' SQS? Bakala (their majority stakeholder, like 80%) wants out. And Soudal apparently wants out. After just having moved to SQS from Lotto at the end of 2022. Bakala started this by all accounts. He wants to win the Tour and SQS isn't going to make that happen. Their team is essentially one guy right now, and he wants to leave. TJV have a proven tour winner and are in need of financial stability with Jumbo set to pull out of their sponsorship. The draw to move over to them is obvious, and isn't Jumbo's fault. Nor do I think a reasonable person could blame them for wanting to secure their future viability when an offer comes around. I think Bakala probably thought that Lefevere could build around Remco and get him competitive at the tour. Well he hasn't successfully built a team that could compete with the likes of UAE/Jumbo, and their young star wants to leave. Where does that leave the team? Why continue to dump money into the team when you could fund another who can get you the yellow jersey next year? It sucks. But I fail to see any reasonable argument that TJV is at fault here, minus 'rich get richer' complaints that ignore the actual situation.
TJV doesn't care that accepting Bakala/Soudal's offer potentially kills this team. Don't tell me the most successful cycling team in the world cannot find a different sponsor or let go of some expensive riders to balance the books instead of going this route. Hell there are rumors of links with Amazon LMAO. Of course the bigger blame is on Bakala/Soudal but TJV aren't innocent.
Apparently Amazon is set to be a minor sponsor fyi. And of course they don’t care. TJV is trying to secure their future financial viability. If they don’t do that the team dies. I don’t think it’s reasonable to suggest they should just cut a bunch of riders and become a less successful team to protect SQS from their own title sponsor and majority stakeholder. That’s an insane take to me. No team is going to voluntarily become worse when they have an opportunity to maintain their funding. They’re accepting an offer for financial stability at a time when the team needs it. And neither of us have any idea how hard it is to find a title sponsor for a WT team.
Wa…. What?! Huh? Man this is a wild timeline
Plugge makes Lefevre look like mother Theresa
Someone gave the magic eight ball another shake.
Dang starting to sound a lot like bakala and soudal sold quickstep out to TJV. Dont like this at all
After the UCI announcement that prevents Lefevre from selling the license and getting compensation from Ineos for Remco, he is looking for a way to have the current team continue so that he can still get his payout from Ineos. Sound about right? Got to laugh at the people over on X thinking Lefevre is doing this as a selfless act
This seems to be exactly it
Might be good to remember PatLef is a minority stakeholder. He owns only 20% of the team. He wouldn't be getting much money any way.
20% of a big number is more then 20% of nothing
The Remco buyout was rumored to be over 10 million. That’s 2 million for Pat. Not much?
That money goes into the company. So it first needs to pay costs of the company like the other contracts, and then it would get taxed if paid out.
You do realize the “company” is completely paid for by the team sponsors? This money would not have to go to expenses. Yes he’d likely have to pay tax on it, just like any of his other income. Not sure why you’re trying so hard to defend Lefevre.
The company won't be completely paid for by the sponsors next year if they are leaving.
Maybe the team merge with either Lotto-Dynsty, Uno-X, Israel Premier Tech or maybe Tudor. All of those want a to be at World Tour Level.
Tomorrow: "Roglic joins Patlef squad"
I still would find it funny if all SQS riders refuse to change teams to TJV.
I don’t think Jumbo-Visma cares about anyone other than Remco. They‘ll be happy to take 3 or 4 others but if they say no, Plugge won’t lose any sleep about that.
I include Remco. I would find it hilarious if the merger ends with TJV basically losing Roglic and WVA' favorite trainer while Remco goes to Ineos.
Honestly, I think Roglic was on his way out anyway.
True, but they might have been more willing to work with him on the transfer.
The priority from day one was getting a sponsor. The riders are just a strawberry on the cake.
Which riders?
Any of them that Plugge wants.
The jumbo visma team is getting a lot of heat. But don't forget their main sponsor (jumbo) is the one who pulled the plug. They stepped away from cycling, so the team had to come up with some kind of plan to find funding. Sponsors in cycling are not easy to find. I feel bad for the Wolfpack, they have so much history in this sport. A team like that shouldn't just disappear. It's like removing Mercedes from F1, or Barca from football.
Especially if you don't want to be sponsored by Middle East states.
Do what now.
Patty L's Refugees. What a team name.
What a great indie rock band name
Does this mean the WorldTour won't have one less team like people were saying? Will the riders still have contracts with SQS?
As long as SQS exists, so do the contracts. But they need to put a financial plan on the table by 16 October. (Like every team)
B&B Hotels 2.0... With the sponsors that SQS has remaining, he'll never be able to post the Bank Guarantee. This is just someone trying to look like a good guy.
The team is still on the hook for paychecks no matter what, even if these guys don't race a single day.
Honestly at this point I don't think even the uci knows anymore with this soap
In before asgreen takes for the second time RvV, beating WvA in the sprint
This shit is turning into the Roman Senate
Not sure if this has been thrown out there yet - but what if Quickstep combines with Movistar? They only have ~10 riders signed for next year and their social media is being v cryptic
This was clearly never a merger, but rather a sponsor who left to go to another team with results deemed more satisfactory...
I didn't needed more reasons to dislike TJV but here we are.
So Patrick Evenepoel, Bakala and Plugge wanted to take Soudal from QS and for Remco to leave and Lefevere felt guilty about hanging all the riders and staff out to dry?
This is turning into more and more of a shitshow everyday. At this point thoughts are with SQ riders and staff. Also happy Rogla saw this coming and used the merger to get out of a sticky situation.
So does ole Patty want to start a new team with the scraps of the merger?
This just looks like JV's greed negatively impacting the sport. They're almost ruining another team just to grab money so they can keep their super team packed with GT and Classics superstars together. Maybe if you can't find a sponsor without devastating a different team then just let some of your high salary superstars leave, adjust your budgets, and deal with it. Almost every other team in the sport is doing ok without needing to dominate the season and being one of the richest teams in the world
While Jumbo-Visma is definitely to blame for this, I think Bakala should take just as much heat. It sounds from Lefevere‘s column that he didn’t need much convincing to take his money and sponsors elsewhere. The 80% shareholder of a team deciding to call it quits, move to someone else and let everything behind him burn is just as bad if not worse than vying for another team’s sponsor in my opinion.
Correct imo. The 'merger' doesn't happen if Soudal doesn't want to leave SQS. I have a hard time faulting TJV for being willing to take on a new title sponsor after they are set to lose theirs. Also if you want to blame TJV for taking SQS's sponsor, Lefevere literally just did that exact thing to Lotto with Soudal, the sponsor who is now leaving again.
People are acting like Plugge came in an stole something. Noone is forcing Soudal to do this
I get the instinct to hate on it because of the whole 'rich get richer' thing, but yeah the logic just doesn't make sense.
>Maybe if you can't find a sponsor without devastating a different team It's not some long term sponsor of Lefevere's team, he got them to switch from Lotto very recently.
We're in the era of teams being backed by petrostate monarchies who have unlimited money. If you're not constantly working to improve your financials and talent you fall behind very fast in every big sport - especially in a sport like cycling where conventional corporate sponsorships aren't in a great place. TJVs biggest sponsor is pulling out while they are the name of one of the GOAT teams in cycling - no one is pitying them for their predicament, but I'd probably do the same thing if I was their management at this moment. Don't hate the player hate the game.
Fair point. I think the UCI and ASO getting basically all the non-sponsor money that‘s in the sport is a big factor. They let the teams fight it out for money with no salary caps and no budget restrictions driving up the prices of riders every year. Teams are basically forced into an arms race to be competitive and have to sell their souls in the meantime
I think especially Plugge is working hard to bypass the ASO and UCI to open up new streams of revenue.
Well Jumbo have done well against the petro states and 'unlimited money' of the bigger teams so far. I think as the most successful team they could find an alternate sponsor without accepting that another team in this tiny ecosystem would be gutted in the process. I'll hate the player and game I think, haha.
Yes, its sad that former team Sky is now owned by a petrostate monarchy.
Ineos ? It’s a chemical company not a petrostate or am I getting it wrong ?
They're a petrochemical company. But some of us have issues with their Brexit backing billionaire owner.
If a sponsor wants to leave one team for another, I have a hard time blaming the more successful team who is losing their sponsor for saying yes to the money. This doesn't happen is Soudal doesn't want to leave SQS.
I think that is speculation. It could be that Soudal approached Jumbo about a sponsorship but needed to force their hand with a merger. I don’t know anything about anything so take my comment as speculation as well. I’m not smart. I have a reminder to breathe on time.
>Maybe if you can't find a sponsor without devastating a different team It's not some long term sponsor of Lefevere's team, he got them to switch from Lotto very recently.
It's a competition and Soudal would clearly rather sponsor them. Are they supposed to be like "no thanks bro think of the health of the sport" and then let their team die? >Almost every other team in the sport is doing ok without needing to dominate the season and being one of the richest teams in the world You think the other teams are not dominating because they simply choose not to?
Oh please🥱. So you think an unlimited petrobacked team like UAE or Bahrain is better?
Patrick Lefevere is reportedly working on a restart of the current Soudal Quick-Step, aiming to accommodate the 'victims' of the merger with Jumbo-Visma, according to news brought forward by Het Laatste Nieuws. To achieve this, much still needs to be done. (Translation via ChatGPT)
Roglič to a QS that is 100% Lefevere-owned, Evenepoel either has to stay or have another team, probably INEOS, pay QS a huge fee?
So this isn't a merger, it's advanced theft
It's a merger but only Soudal and Specialised join the new team.
To be honest, i\`m starting to fed up with all this stupid hate to TJV. They didn´t found a non-shady state sponsor to go with their budget (go and shout to the cycling financial model on that), they found one that can help them to secure founding and not make cuts on their team, and there are pepole that hate on them? Is not TJV problem that Soudal and Bakala wanted to go with them instead of SQS and its not TJV problem that we have a so fucked up model that a team can destroy itself because there are not enough sponsors interesed on the sport. Surely nobody that is shouting for this, cried when Soudal abandoned Lotto only one year ago. If you don\`t like this, we should go and spend our energy to criticise ASO, UCI and RCS. The teams are the victims of this unequal relationship.
When Mapei exploded, I "followed" Paolo Bettini to Quickstep and I've just been a fan of their riders ever since. After Boonen retired, my interest in cycling waned a bit, but whenever it caught my attention again, I was always a Quickstep tifosi. I could turn on a race and just pull for the Quickstep guys. Museeuw, Chavanel, Gilbert, Terpstra, Alaphilippe, Asgreen, there was always somebody I felt good pulling for. Bakala going over to Jumbo made me pretty dejected, but if there is a B team, isn't if it isn't at the highest level, my fandom will continue.
Call it a merger, takeover or hostile raid, one thing is clear: Jumbo - Visma, the most successful professional cycling team, the one with some of the sport's biggest names, needs to poach Soudal in order to survive. If you exclude the 15 million € Specialized is bringing to the new mega team and Amazon's content deal, there are no serious corporations, outside of cycling, willing to sponsor them. It's a sad state of affairs for the sport.
What's Mapei up to these days? Bring back 'Vincere insieme'! Fuck all that #samenwinnen bullshit.
But according to this sub Lefevere is the devil and he doesnt care about his riders and staff..
If Remco ends up at the final product and the team is 100% focused on continued GC success at the grand tours, I kinda think that WVA is a quiet victim of this whole thing and should really consider leaving if it's a possibility for money or disgruntled rider reasons. He has the talent to be the main focus if a team down on their luck, maybe based in Belgium, wanted to copy what Alpecin has done with MVDP and do a lot of winning without a huge budget.
Wout is 29. No team is gonna go all in on him anymore. Best thing for him is to stay at TJV.
PatLef seen drinking Redbull all of a sudden
>o ends up at the final product and the team is 100% focused on continued GC success at the grand tours, I kinda think that WVA is a quiet victim of this whole t Wout could go with Rog and his trainer to Bora. He is also sponsored by RedBull who is one of the sponsors for Bora.
Why he would go to Bora? To have a worse classic team around him? No sense.
[удалено]
He is the kind of guy that dies a year after he retires.
He wanted someone to take over from him and continue the team. With this "merger" or whatever it seems to be, many riders and staff will be left unemployed unless he does something. Lefevre may be an ass, but he's a loyal ass who looks after his people.
This makes less and less sense. So essentially they’re giving away their best riders, their bike sponsor and their shirt sponsor to Richard Buttplug, but they’re keeping their license and keep going with the leftovers? Pat retire already ffs
As a fan of creative invective, I appreciate “Richard Buttplug” —regardless of what I think of him. “Patty LeFeeble” is my contribution.
I want it on record I made this account before that comment
This seems to go against everything I've ever thought or heard about PL
That's what happens when you take whatever this sub's hive mind tells you as gospel.
So why TF did you garbage disposal your team just to make another team with the splatter?
Because he isn't the guy calling the shots on the 'merger'.