Alan Cathcart | February 24, 2019
MV Agusta went through an enormous shift late last year, and is now under the control of young Russian investor, Timur Sardarov. Alan Cathcart sat down with him for a chat about what lies ahead for MV.
MV Agusta is now Russian-owned after it was revealed on November 2, 2018, that London-based Russian investor Timur Sardarov, 36, had topped up his initial investment made two years earlier in the historic Italian trophy brand with another injection of capital sufficient to give him overall control of the company.
Moscow-born Sardarov moved to England in 2003, and with two children recently born there, London remains his home. His oligarch father Roman is one of the 500 richest men in Russia, his fortune derived from the Comstar Energy Group, one of the country’s largest oil and natural gas companies.
Timur Sardarov founded a UK-based private jet airline business in 2005, which he sold in 2013 in order to concentrate on his capital venture business Black Ocean Investment, which he founded in 2006 in conjunction with British partner Oliver Ripley.
In 2016 he met Giovanni Castiglioni, and as an MV Agusta owner already with a Dragster RR amongst his other bikes, including three Harleys (a Sportster, a Softail, and a Fat Boy), and a Ducati Diavel, the two hit it off, and Black Ocean essentially financed the restructuring of MV Agusta after its latest bout of financial uncertainty.
Sardarov has had a hands-on role at MV’s Varese factory since June 2017, and is now responsible for the overall management of the prestigious manufacturer, winner to date of 270 Grand Prix races, 38 World Riders’ Championships, and 37 World Constructors’ Championships.
The chance to speak with Timur Sardarov after his acquisition of a majority slice of MV Agusta equity revealed his key pointers for the company’s future direction.
By Alan Cathcart | Photography by MV Agusta
Timur, please bring me up to date on the ownership of this company?
Well, I guess I became the captain of the ship at MV Agusta. Our investment company Black Ocean has purchased a majority shareholding in the company, and as a result of this I’ve become CEO and Chairman of the MV Agusta Group, while Giovanni Castiglioni has been appointed President. It’s exciting times, because Gio and I will be working together to restore MV Agusta to its correct place in the motorcycle market. We’ve completed a capital injection of over Euro 50 million in total to strengthen the company’s resources, and to underwrite its future business plan.
What will be your respective responsibilities?
Giovanni’s skills are in product, he’s an absolutely incredible visionary on the design side, whereas my expertise is more in technology, as well as marketing and sales—that’s what I’m good at. I know how the tech world works, and one reason I decided to come in to MV two years ago was to work on a new way to sell these bikes, as part of a multi-year effort for developing MV Agusta as a company.
I believe my skills are complimentary to Gio’s, so together we can create an MV Agusta that hasn’t existed before—a soundly financed, stable, forward looking company, with fantastic products that are the most beautiful and most technically advanced street bikes in the world.
What’s your strategy for achieving this?
Our strategy for 2018 was to stabilize everything, from production to the sales network to get back to normal again after so much uncertainty about its long-term existence. We’ve done that by making 3500 bikes this year—but this is a company with a break-even point of 2500 units, so whatever you do above that is profit. I would feel very comfortable to grow the brand up to 10,000 units annually, but no more.
Because you’d like to maintain exclusivity, or because you don’t want to make further investment necessary?
It’s not about investment; it’s about supporting an existing group of customers in the right way, and maintaining the image of MV Agusta as a brand that does things differently. I don’t like the word ‘exclusive’—I like to say ‘different.’ It’s a high-end brand, but different, not prestigious, not exclusive. Let’s put it this way; we’re more expensive than everyone else, but I wouldn’t consider us as exclusive. I want us to be different.
Which countries are you predominantly selling to at present?
Our sales markets are dominated by Italy, Germany, the UK, and France. France is a very good market for us. We’re opening the largest number of MV Agusta mono-brand stores in the world in France.
Where are you looking for MV Agusta sales to expand?
The USA for us is unchartered territory, and I would say that we have a two, three or even four-fold growth potential in the American market, which is potentially the world’s largest market for MV Agusta, and in which we’re presently not very well represented—we’ve got a lot of work to do in North America.
Firstly, we have to fix the existing dealer network, then secondly to grow that network and to be present in the largest cities there. Our objective now is not to grow just by penetration. It’s to grow by enlargement of the existing dealers. And the new dealers that we’ll bring on board, they have to clearly buy into our culture. We have 23 or 24 U.S. dealers right now, but we can double or triple that number very quickly.
But they must be the right dealers—ones that can work with a client, can embrace him, can make him part of the MV community. There are other key markets that are underdeveloped for MV, like Asia, where MV currently sells 30 percent of its bikes. Thirty percent is a lot, but we think we can bring that to 40 percent in Asia, so we’re setting up our own operation in India and China, where we’re tripling sales right now.
In terms of the sales network, except in North America, we’re actually aiming to reduce the current number of dealers in order to allow the best ones to expand their territories, and thus deliver a better service. We’re also going to open several new MV Agusta mono-brand stores in key cities around the world. MV Agusta Moscow already opened this November—it’s a really good store, and we will expand there. MV Agusta London is coming by mid-2019, together with other six new mono-brand stores within the next 12 months. This is part of our plan to reinforce the service level to our clients through the introduction of a new integrated system linking MV Agusta, its network and its supply chain, in order to reduce the lead time of spare parts and accessories to customers.
Does your acquisition of a controlling interest in MV Agusta also include Cagiva, which was the Castiglioni family brand?
Yes, it’s all one company, which Cagiva is certainly part of. Cagiva will be the electric brand of the MV group. Before the end of 2019 you’ll see it entering the commuter market with a range of electric bicycles with a seven to 11 kilowatts removable battery, but with beautiful MV Agusta-type styling. These will be electric products, which are fully practical, aimed at urban commuting, but which also have the style and the charisma that MV Agusta products have always had, branded as Cagiva.
My desire is for Cagiva to stand alone, because it’s a very powerful brand in its own right, but unfortunately its image got diluted through association with brands like Ducati and MV Agusta and Husqvarna that Gio’s family owned alongside it.
It shouldn’t be like this. I want Cagiva to have its own identity, its own team, its own products, and from the two brands to leverage off each other, starting right now. In the short term Cagiva will be leveraging off MV Agusta’s technical knowhow, maybe off MV’s design, and certainly off the Agusta dealer network and supply chain. Then later on, Agusta will leverage off Cagiva‘s experience in electric—I can foresee we will be making MV Agusta electric bikes. We must remember that Cagiva at one stage was Italy’s largest manufacturer of motorcycles, and that it was Italy’s most successful 500cc Grand Prix brand, long before Ducati entered MotoGP—so it has a great story to tell in a modern context.
Do you already have an electric development team working on Cagiva E-products?
Yes. You can expect us to launch a range of such models at EICMA 2019 next November.
Where do you see taking MV Agusta specifically in the future?
The high-volume strategy didn’t work so we need to focus on delivering ongoing premium high-quality products, on developing the sales network, and on increasing the level of service to our customers by making them feel as if they’re joining a family when they purchase an MV Agusta or a Cagiva.
Do you plan to only offer larger capacity bikes—so, no more 675 three-cylinder models?
No, indeed not. We will continue with the 675 F3 and Brutales because they’re popular models, which already sell very well, but we’re also looking at introducing a 35kW 675 Brutale entry-level bike to help younger and/or inexperienced riders to join our MV Agusta family, via an A2 license in Europe.
In addition, we’re also working on a 930cc version of the three-cylinder motor, which will bring us a range of models based on that platform. Then in the meantime we’re going to show a supercharged version of the F3 as a concept, probably in the middle of next year. That’ll be crazy—just like an MV should be! Then finally, we’re also focusing right now on improving the 800 models’ ride-ability, so we’ll be introducing the new SCS/Smart Clutch System transmission across the entire product range that we premiered this year on the Turismo Veloce.
As an option, or on all bikes?
As an option to begin with, but we’ll try to make it very appealing price-wise to encourage owners to specify it, because it’s a game-changer. It’s a first step into really changing the dynamics of riding, and it gives you so much confidence. SCS has a big potential, and nobody else has it besides MV Agusta.
Besides the new triples, are you also working on a new generation of four-cylinder models?
Yes, we have our new four-cylinder engine that we introduced in the 1000 Brutale Serie d’Oro at the EICMA Show in November. This is almost a new engine apart from the crankcases—it’s fascinating what our technical department did to it. The new Brutale 1000 is in a category of its own, as a hyper-naked bike with over 200 horsepower—208bhp to be exact, in Euro 4 compliant form, in a 375-pound platform and capable of 190 mph! It’s going to be a really cool motorcycle, which is something else in terms of technology, in terms of rideability, in terms of its presence. It’s quite an amazing product and the fact that it was elected it the most beautiful bike of the 2018 EICMA Show, shows the public recognize that, too.
Will you make an F4 Superbike version, using an even higher performance version of this new motor?
The new four-cylinder engine will be utilized to begin with only for the Brutale 1000, because we’re ending production of the existing F4 early in 2019, with the final edition which will be a tribute to the late Claudio Castiglioni, Gio’s father. We’ll probably make only 64 such bikes, which was his age when he passed away. This will be a very special model, which will incorporate almost all the technology we’ve been able to develop for this 20-year-old platform before it fades out. That means the F4 Claudio which we displayed at EICMA will essentially be the bike which Leon Camier and Jordi Torres raced so successfully at the highest level in World Superbike, and it’ll be quite special—a collector’s piece, with very advanced engineering and materials technology.
After that, we won’t be manufacturing any four-cylinder hypersport models for a while. We’re about a year into developing a new F4 from the ground up, and it’ll probably take another two years from now to be ready. We expect to present it as a 2021 model, and it’ll be radically different from any other hyperbike ever made, just as the first F4 was 20 years ago.
To be honest, the decision to stop the F4 was mine, because although we had a crazy looking evolution of the existing F4—the design was amazing, and Adrian [Morton – MV’s head of design – AC] is a genius—I believed it wasn’t special enough, it wasn’t a mold-breaker like the F4 was 20 years ago. So that’s why we’re working on a few things that will make the new one special—like pneumatic valves, a tiptronic gearbox, a turbo or supercharger. That’s why we think that to stop the F4 and have a breather for two or three years is a very good idea. Stop, allow people to forget about it, and then come back with something fabulous—that’s the best way to do it.
Another reason for terminating the F4 was that we can’t afford to simultaneously develop two separate new platforms—and in 2019 we will develop a new Cafe Racer family of models as a different platform, which we’ll term Neo-classic. This will utilize part of the new four-cylinder motor, but it’s a different engine, and this will also open that family of bikes right up. We’ll have a naked roadster, sure, but we can have something off-roadish looking like a street enduro or flat-tracker, plus something like a Neo-classic old GP racer. We’re going to have a big range of premium Neo-classic MV Agusta models, for which we’re sure there’s a market.
You don’t have a factory MV Agusta museum, as Moto Guzzi and Ducati do. Is that something that might change?
I definitely want to create a museum here at Schiranna. Can you imagine that with the huge amount of history in this company, with 270 Grand Prix victories and 75 World Championship titles including 17 successive 500GP crowns, there’s not a single old MV Agusta motorcycle in the factory right now? When I get some budget for it we’re going to build a museum here and stock it with bikes I’m already purchasing, and I also hope to obtain the loan of historic GP bikes from existing collectors.
What other models will you use the Brutale’s new 1000cc engine for? Will you make a four-cylinder Sport Turismo version, for example?
I don’t really want to talk a lot about that; I want everyone to focus on the Brutale. But yes, there are a few projects on that platform that we’re working on right now.
Will the new Brutale 1000 have the SCS option?
Yes, it will.
And will you be making a high-performance version of that, so an RC version of that?
Yes, it’s coming up next year.
MV Agusta is going Grand Prix racing this coming season for the first time since 1976, in the Moto2 class not with a three-cylinder MV engine, but a Triumph one. Why do that?
Yes, we are, even if the 765cc Triumph control motor is quite a bit taller and bigger than our three-cylinder MV Agusta 800 engine. We feel there are two benefits from doing this. First, we have a little bit of experience in making three-cylinder bikes that handle well, and since we’re not going to have the F4 any more in World Superbike next year, we still want to continue racing, because it’s part of MV’s heritage.
We’ve signed a four-year deal with Forward Racing, which used Suter chassis until now on their Honda-engined Moto2 bikes, but we will supply them with MV Agusta race bikes with Triumph control engines from next season on, 43 years after MV Agusta last appeared in grand prix racing. We feel that the Moto2 platform financially makes more sense, and also in terms of the media coverage. Moto2 has quite a bit more potential than superbike, even if you’re using another company’s engine. For MV, we want to be part of the MotoGP world and learn how it functions, and Moto2 is the most cost effective way of doing so at this stage. We’re keeping our race effort financially separate from MV Agusta Motor, because MotoGP is a recipe for how to lose money—but we’ll be funded through sponsors, 100 percent!
Our main objective is to concentrate all our financial effort on making MV a 21st century company in terms of product, technology, delivery, availability, serviceability, everything. And for us, to divert the use of our capital just to take part in the MotoGP class doesn’t make any sense. But Moto2 we can afford, and it will be a good vehicle to generate public interest in us in the world of racing, where MV has such a great history. CN