Accell Group, the Dutch owner of the historic Raleigh bicycle brand, has begun insolvency proceedings after failing to find a buyer, putting the future of the 139-year-old British name in the hands of court-appointed administrators. Raleigh was founded in 1887 and once made a million bicycles a year at its Nottingham factory with more than 8,000 staff, but it stopped manufacturing in England in 2002 and was sold to Accell in 2012, ending 125 years of British ownership.

Accell, which also owns Lapierre, Ghost and Babboe, said it had exhausted every realistic option to keep the group running in its current form. The company was bought for €1.4bn in 2022 by US private equity firm KKR, which sought to profit from a pandemic-era cycling boom, but overproduction left it with unsold stock and mounting losses; KKR handed control to creditors in February after Chinese competition and failed takeover talks with Singapore's Tri Star Group scuppered efforts to rescue the business. Chief executive Jonas Nilsson called it a "deeply sad and frustrating situation" for employees, creditors and suppliers.