Back in April I wrote a post about the troubles that Fanatec is facing. Now Endor AG, the parent company and with that the 49 percent share holder of Fanatec, has filed for insolvency.
While this does no necessarily mean Fanatec will cease to operate, it is unwise to expect business as usual with support and warranties for purchased goods.
Fanatec has a debt of 95 million Euro and this includes the bridging loan from Corsair which was poised to take over if the companies could come to an agreement. The bigger issue is the debt to the suppliers in China, they have stopped shipping a few weeks back already as they have not been paid in months which of course means the end of sales and warranties as well.
We will continue to offer our Fanatec adapters and the Sequential Shifter with Fanatec compatibility with full support and warranty for our products of course.
As it stands, there is a chance that Corsair will pick up the brand, possibly even continue the more valuable products such as the direct drive systems and any unreleased products as they have ownership over some of the IP (which was part of their financing deal) but personally I would not bet the farm on that. It really depends whether Corsair thinks it is worth keeping the brand alive which considering the damage it has taken, might not be worth much.
Its important to consider that sim racing is a niche market, Fanatec never sold through retail and so most people wont even know the brand as well as for example, Logitech or Thrustmaster, both available on Amazon world wide and many retail outlets beyond. This also brings trust in the product and warranty - something that a stand alone retailer has to fight for and that Fanatec has definitely lost.