page_title: MV Agusta
section_title: 2004—2016: Time of changes
hierarchical_section_title: MV Agusta / History / 2004—2016: Time of changes
caption_attribution_description: MV Agusta Rivale
context_page_description: MV Agusta is a motorcycle manufacturer founded by Count Domenico Agusta on 19 January 1945 as one of the branches of the Agusta aircraft company near Milan in Cascina Costa, Italy. The abbreviation MV stands for Meccanica Verghera, the hamlet where the first MVs were made. The modern headquarters and main production facilities are located in Varese, Italy on the shore of Lake Varese.
context_section_description: In December 2004, in spite of the fact that MV Agusta became the main brand of Cagiva group, due to cashflow problems Claudio Castiglioni was forced to sell a bigger part of his stake in MV Agusta (65% of the share capital) to a Malaysian car maker Proton for 70 million euros. One year later Proton sold its shares to the Italian financial holding GEVI S.p.A. for 1 euro only.
  
  In the meantime, Castiglioni obtained from the North American financier Oliver Curme, a general partner with Battery Ventures, who owned the Norton brand, license for production of a new generation of Norton motorcycles (designed by Tamburini) in Italy. However the deal wasn't approved by GEVI S.p.A. which proceed with another deal and sold Husqvarna to BMW in July 2007. Being disappointed by these decisions Claudio found a new opportunity for MV Agusta: on July 11, 2008, Harley-Davidson announced they had signed a definitive agreement to acquire the MV Agusta Group for 109 million US dollars (about 70 million euros), completing the acquisition on August 8, 2008. Claudio Castiglioni remained its president. Harley-Davidson invested 40 million euros into debts pay-off, production upgrade and the new model launches — a completely new three-cylinder F3 designed by the Ezio Mascheroni (who developed also Cagiva GP500 in the past). However due to its own problems Harley-Davidson decided to sell MV Agusta in October 2009.
  And here Claudio was lucky again. On August 6, 2010 the new MV Agusta company, financially healthy and seriously refreshed, was bought by Castiglioni family for just 1 euro. Financial input of Proton and Harley-Davidson was enough to present the next generation of the extreme F4 sports bike with the new Corsa Corta engine with a capacity of 998 cc and 201 hp at EICMA 2010. It was the first new four-cylinder engine MV Agusta since 2005. At the same time, the Brutale naked line was updated, getting new model names 990 R (998 cc, 139 hp) and 1090 R (1078 cc, 142 hp). As a result, sales were increased for 50% in Q1 2010 and by the end of the year they achieved 3650 units.
  However, on August 17, 2011, after a long illness at the age of 64, Claudio Castiglioni died. Giovanni Castiglioni, the son of Claudio, became the head of the company, and Massimo Bordi, who returned to the motorcycle industry, became vice-president. 
  “F3 is our future,” — Claudio Castiglioni said at the presentation of the three-cylinder F3 model — in fact, he shared the company strategy for the coming years. Production of the “supersport” F3 675 and its naked version Brutale 675 began at the Varese factory in 2012. A year later they were supplemented by 798 cc F3 800 and also by Rivale 800 hypermotard. Then the range of three-cylinder models was expanded with Brutale 800 and the Brutale 800 Dragster, as well as the Turismo Veloce 800 and Stradale 800 sport tourers.
  During the next years MV Agusta demonstrated significant sales growth:  3,687 units in 2011 (+1% vs prior year), 6557 in 2012 (+70%), 7488 in 2013 (+14%), 9200 in 2014 (+23%). However the company was not able to manage such explosive growth situation from processes and financials side and finally MV Agusta increased its debt again. In addition to this MV experienced its traditional problems with dealer network and spare parts delivery. Therefore, the announced partnership with Mercedes-AMG looked like a good deal for MV Agusta .
  The motivation of Mercedes-AMG acquisition of 25% of MV (rumored for 30 millions euros of injections into the company plus support in sales & marketing operations) remains unclear. But this followed similar acquisition strategy by rival Ducati, now in partnership with Audi. Anyway this deal helped MV Agusta with getting back lenders' confidence and in February 2015, Banca Popolare di Milano (BPM) with the guarantees of the Italian export credit agency SACE loaned to MV Agusta 15 million euros to implement a new business plan. In addition, suppliers opened a new €25 million credit line for MV.
  According to the press Giovani Castiglioni expected more investments from Mercedes-AMG which did
caption: 2014 MV Agusta Rivale 800
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D5200", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Nikon Transfer 2.10 M", "Image DateTime": "3915:08:18 16:20:15", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "234", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 3, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "890", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "15116", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8873", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/1600", "EXIF FNumber": "63/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:07:18 10:32:12", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:07:18 10:32:12", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "22/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "30", "EXIF SubSecTime": "60", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "60", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "60", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "6000", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "4000", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "860", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "30", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}