RANCHO DOMINGUEZ, Calif. (BRAIN) — The KHS U.S. distribution business is closing down for good this week, seven months after the company announced it would close unless it found a buyer.
The company’s founders, Wen and Susah Hsieh, are retiring after a half-century running the business. KHS Vice President Wayne D. Gray also is retiring.
“I’m riding my brains out! I did 100 miles last weekend,” Gray told BRAIN on Thursday.
Gray said KHS is sending its last shipments out this week and then will spend June cleaning and re-painting the warehouse, which has already been sold.
Since the announcement last October, KHS operated more or less normally until January, then began selling down its inventory at discount. Gray said the majority of the sales were to KHS’s existing 2,700 dealer network.
“We didn’t work with any jobbers, you know those guys who will offer you five cents on the dollar. It almost all went to our dealers,” he said.
The last container load of new inventory arrived Thursday, with its contents all pre-sold, he said.
Following the closure, the KHS bike brand will continue to be manufactured in Taiwan and sold in other markets, but the brand will not have a U.S. distributor.
In the October announcement, Gray said the owners were open to selling the business. “We negotiated with a whole bunch of people, but none of them came to fruition for a million different reasons,” he said Thursday.
Besides bike riding, Gray said he plans to spend his retirement fishing. He leaves on a saltwater fishing trip June 8. “We’re all done, and we’re all looking forward to retirement,” he said.
