financial institutions to ensure that all businesses have
the least impact as possible through the Covid-19 crisis,
it’s allowing businesses to seek alternatives and find
financial security.
“We are working with banks and financial institutions
to sort out interest only payments for a short term,” says
Mike Gilbert of New Zealand’s Beatnik and Company.
“We’re reducing insurance costs by parking the bikes,
selling off some units out of the fleet to reduce debt load,
having sales and good deals on retail gear in the store
front.
“In the past, during a period with a dip in income, we
were able to sell a bike or two from the fleet to continue
unaffected,” agreed Mike Thomsen of Motolombia. “But
now we can't even go to our office to show the bikes even
if we wanted to give them away.”
Colombia is in full lockdown, no one is able to access
their workspace unless absolutely required. It’s put
Thomsen’s Motolombia in a precarious position as he
continued that the local people will not take any chances
and refuse to spend on money on anything other than
survival.
Gilbert added that Beatnik are ‘re-tooling’ the retail
and rental business for more of a local focus in the short
term and look at markets they haven’t tackled before,
it’s an interesting concept and is shared by many other
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