- MV Agusta has acknowledged operational, industrial and financial difficulties
- Art of Mobility is evaluating changes to the ownership structure
- CFMOTO has been linked to a 49% stake, but no deal is officially confirmed
MV Agusta is going through another difficult chapter existentially. The Italian manufacturer has acknowledged that its operations and finances are not where it wants them to be and is now working through a structured recovery process. This comes barely a year after the company separated from KTM and returned completely to the Sardarov family’s Art of Mobility.
There needs to be a careful separation between what MV Agusta has actually confirmed and what is been reported around it. There are claims that motorcycle production at its Schiranna factory has been sitting idle for months. Also reports suggested that CFMOTO had been preparing to acquire 49 percent of the business before negotiations collapsed. Neither MV Agusta nor CFMOTO has publicly confirmed the detailed 49 percent transaction, and MV Agusta has stopped short of confirming that its motorcycle assembly line has completely shut down.
In a clarification issued on 11 September, MV Agusta said it has been working for several months to restore its full operational, industrial and financial balance. It directly linked much of the difficulty to the separation from KTM explaining that the two companies had become deeply integrated and that restoring MV Agusta’s independent processes has taken considerable work.
KTM initially bought 25.1 percent of MV Agusta in November 2022. It subsequently increased its holding to 50.1 percent in March 2024, paying €45 million at that stage comprising €35 million in cash and €10 million in PIERER Mobility shares with a further performance-related payment built into the agreement.
Under KTM, MV Agusta’s purchasing, parts of its supply chain and international distribution became increasingly linked with the wider Pierer organisation. At the time, MV Agusta was even talking about expanding production at Varese beyond 10,000 motorcycles annually. The company also invested in a new production line capable of building as many as 1,000 motorcycles per month.
Then KTM’s own financial problems changed everything.
By the beginning of 2025, MV Agusta and Art of Mobility had agreed that the Sardarov-controlled company would take the Italian manufacturer back. The transaction was finally completed on 9 July 2025, giving Art of Mobility complete control of MV Agusta once again.
MV Agusta had allowed a significant amount of its business infrastructure to become intertwined with KTM. Once that relationship ended, the Italian company had to rebuild independent procurement, logistics, distribution, commercial systems and other processes while continuing to develop and sell motorcycles.
In March 2026, MV Agusta announced that its entire spare-parts warehousing operation had moved to DHL Supply Chain, with DHL Express handling international distribution. The intention was specifically to improve parts availability, order management and delivery speed.
The company also continued introducing products. In April, it repositioned the F3 R in Italy. That was followed by the Brutale 1000 ABT collaboration in May, and MV Agusta remained publicly active through the first part of the summer.
MV Agusta says it recorded 2,166 global retail registrations during the first half of 2026, compared with 2,094 over the equivalent period in 2025. That represents growth of 3.4 percent. Italy reportedly climbed from 500 to 644 motorcycles, while France and the US also showed gains.
A company can have customers buying motorcycles while simultaneously having serious cash-flow and production problems. Registrations do not necessarily mean that those motorcycles were built during the same period. Dealers can sell inventory manufactured earlier, and distributors may still have stock even while fresh factory output is reduced. Improving retail registrations do not automatically disprove reports of factory disruption.
The strongest indication of the seriousness of MV Agusta’s position is its decision to enter Italy’s Composizione Negoziata della Crisi, or CNC.
This sounds alarmingly close to insolvency when translated literally. Italy’s official Chamber of Commerce system describes the CNC as a voluntary, negotiated procedure for businesses experiencing financial or asset imbalance when recovery is still considered reasonably achievable. An independent expert assists discussions with creditors and other stakeholders with the objective of restructuring the business before the situation develops into insolvency.
So MV Agusta has not announced that it is bankrupt. Nor is the CNC the same thing as liquidation. But companies do not enter this process because everything is operating normally either. The procedure exists precisely because a financial imbalance has become significant enough to require organised negotiations with creditors, lenders, shareholders and potentially new investors.
Art of Mobility remains the official 100 percent shareholder. MV Agusta has confirmed that its owner has evaluated several possibilities concerning the company’s future shareholding structure.
The report that triggered much of the latest discussion claims that CFMOTO was prepared to acquire an initial 49 percent of MV Agusta and that a memorandum of understanding had been signed in June. The suggested arrangement reportedly included significant new investment into the Italian company. Reportedly. We cannot treat that as an officially completed or even officially acknowledged transaction.
There is currently no announcement of an MV Agusta acquisition or equity investment on CFMOTO’s corporate news platform, and MV Agusta has not officially identified CFMOTO as one of the parties with which Art of Mobility negotiated. Various financial and advisory parties have been associated with efforts to find investment, but MV Agusta’s official position is that other parties and scenarios remain under assessment.
Recent reports claim that normal motorcycle production has effectively been paused since April 2026. The explanation given is that financial pressure affected supplier payments and disrupted the flow of components required to keep the assembly line operating.
Its September clarification does acknowledge operational and industrial difficulties and says management is working to restore the conditions required for regular operations. Also identifies continuity of the company and progressive consolidation of operations as priorities.
The safest description at present is that production at Schiranna is reportedly heavily reduced or paused, while MV Agusta itself has confirmed operational disruption but has not officially detailed the extent or duration of any factory shutdown.
When Art of Mobility announced the separation from KTM in early 2025, MV Agusta presented independence as protection against the Austrian group’s financial problems. The company said Varese would continue controlling product development, production, sales, marketing and after-sales operations, while its 219 active sales points would continue normal business. Around 18 months later, MV Agusta itself is working through a structured financial recovery.
MV Agusta is a particularly difficult company to stabilise because of its size. It cannot spread engineering, homologation, manufacturing and distribution expenditure across hundreds of thousands of motorcycles in the way the industry’s largest manufacturers can. Yet its customers expect exotic materials, premium suspension, advanced electronics, distinctive engines and Italian production.
The next investor also has to understand what makes MV Agusta worth saving in the first place.
