When the Italian electric motorcycle company Energica was declared bankrupt last October, its 75% majority owner Ideanomics – a NASDAQ listed American investment fund – simply filed for a judicial liquidation with the appropriate court in Italy and further information dried up. That court’s initial concerns would have been protecting the rights of employees. But it has since moved on to disposal of Energica’s assets.
According to court documents, the total assessed liquidation value was $716,393 (€647,773) and the company was set to be auctioned off as a single lot, although an original March deadline passed and a public auction was rescheduled and has now presumably taken place. A court-authored prospectus for the sale ran to eighty pages. Items on offer included unfinished and prototype motorcycles, intellectual property, certification and homologation, dealer network and distribution history, branding and virtually everything else inside the Energica premises, right down to coffee machines and even metal coat hangers.
Observers reckoned the chances of a white knight prepared to take on the whole legacy operation emerging for a turnaround attempt were unlikely, given the recent list of electric bike OEMs going bust – Alta, Cake, Fuell and New Zealand’s UBCO. And cynics among them pointed out if Energica, once the electric world’s darling and a partner with MotoGP, couldn’t make it work, who can?