Family-owned, cycling components maker SRAM Corp. has retained J.P. Morgan to find a strategic minority investor by August, the company confirmed Monday. The Chicago-based company expects to exceed $400 million in revenue for the year ending in June.
“We want to capitalize on the momentum and add fuel to the fire,” said David Zimberoff, director of global marketing for SRAM. “We are not looking to sell.”
SRAM said the objective is to lay a foundation for the future. SRAM already gets more than 50% of its revenue from overseas, primarily in Europe, where it got a big boost over the weekend when the top two finishers in the Giro de Italia rode to victory on SRAM's newly introduced Red component group. However, the companys competes globally against Shimano Inc., which is on pace to sell more than $1 billion in cycling components this year.
Since it was founded in 1987 to make grip shifters for road bikes, SRAM has emerged as Shimanos most credible rival. In 2002, SRAM acquired suspension fork maker RockShox. Two years later it bought Avid , a maker of disc brakes. It now owns Truvativ, a maker of cranksets and handle bars and manufactures in Ireland, Mexico, Taiwan and Germany.
