Wheel Pros / Hoonigan Could be Filing for Bankruptcy

Wheel Pros (aka Hoonigan) could be filing for bankruptcy as soon as… well… today. (Source – Reorg.Stage) Yeah – this is the same Wheel Pros that very awkwardly changed their name to Hoonigan last year. The Chapter 11 filing comes after Wheel Pros / Hoonigan missed what we can only assume was a huge interest payment in July. First lien lenders (aka: debt secured by collateral) will likely gain majority ownership of the company. And more money will likely be injected into Wheel Pros / Hoonigan as DIP financing (priority to all other debt). Of course everything is up in the air & under negotiations. At S3, we don’t pretend to be financially-fluent in these matters. But what we do know is:

Wheel Pros was on an absolute spending spree during the pandemic…

They bought-up many cool independent aftermarket companies like it was a Monopoly game. And if we’re being honest – they ruined & diluted most of them quite frankly. At least from a heart & authenticity & innovation standpoint. Now – inflation has curbed the wild customer spending of the stimulus/Covid years. And Wheel Pros, who gobbled-up all those aftermarket brands, is in trouble. Wheel Pros / Hoonigan is backed by Clearlake Capital, which is also invests in battery technologies for electric vehicles.