GOOD & PROPER
One year ago, on 17 April 2020, the all-cash £16m ($29m) purchase of the bankrupt Norton Motorcycles brand and its various assets by India’s TVS Motor Company was announced. TVS joint MD Sudarshan Venu subsequently appointed experienced British businessman John Russell as interim CEO of Norton, and moved the company to a new factory on the outskirts of Birmingham, Norton’s first home when it was founded 123 years ago in 1898. There, manufacture of existing models to satisfy held-over orders under deposit has already commenced.
John Russell, 71, has a solid background in the motorcycle industry, having been VP of Harley-Davidson Europe from 1998 to 2007. He became CEO from 2007 to 2013 of Coventry-based Manganese Bronze –somewhat ironically, formerly the owner of NVT/Norton Villiers Triumph in the early 1970s – which was wholly acquired by Chinese automotive giant Geely Holding, today the owner of Volvo and Lotus, as well as China’s top-three bike manufacturer Qianjiang.
One year on from the takeover, we sit down with Russell to get the story so far and to find out what the future holds.
When you took over the reins of Norton one year ago, what did you find?
Far and away the most important thing was the amazing sense of goodwill towards the company. I’d sort of predicted that because of growing up in the back-end of the Geoff Duke era with Manx Norton posters on my bedroom wall. But even so, I was surprised just how uniform and positive the goodwill was towards Norton, and it’s been like that with everybody – people on the street, journalists, owners, politicians, the industry at large, just about everyone. So that really underlined what a good
