Wiggle sold for £180m

Online cycling and triathlon retailer Wiggle has been sold for £180 million to a private equity firm.

Wiggle has been bought by Bridgepoint – best known in the UK for owning clothes retailer Fat Face – 13 years after it was founded.

Wiggle reported a 55% sales rise to £86.6m last year, up from £55m in 2009. More than 600,000 customers in 80 countries used their website in 2010.

Wiggle has won the 220 Award for Online Retailer of the Year countless times and, according to Hitwise, is the No 1 online bike shop by customer visits. Wiggle has also won the Bike Biz Online Retailer Award three years in a row.

Matt Baird Editor of Cycling Plus magazine

About

Matt is a regular contributor to 220 Triathlon, having joined the magazine in 2008. He’s raced everything from super-sprint to Ironman, duathlons and off-road triathlons, and can regularly be seen on the roads and trails around Bristol. Matt is the author of Triathlon! from Aurum Press and is now the editor of Cycling Plus magazine.