If the bike on your shortlist has a Fox fork or shock, the company behind it just lost its CEO and cut its forecast at once.
Fox Factory’s board approved a leadership transition on Thursday, October 15, 2026. Mike Dennison, CEO since 2019, is stepping down and leaving the board. In the same SEC filing, Fox lowered its third-quarter and full-year sales and profit outlook.
Nothing Fox published says bike prices or suspension supply will change. But the numbers show where the company is weak, and bikes are part of that.
Who runs Fox now
Fox gave no reason for Dennison’s exit, and the filing cites no disagreement. It says a transition agreement is expected, but none was signed when Fox filed. The board shrinks from seven members to six.
Douglas Grimm, 64, became interim CEO on October 16. He joined Fox’s board in March 2026, runs V-to-X LLC and is a former president and COO of Metaldyne Performance Group. Fox says he is not a candidate for the permanent job.
The company hired Heidrick & Struggles for the search, led by board chair Jean Hlay. CFO Dennis Schemm stays on to support the interim leadership. Grimm’s $600,000 completion bonus pays if he serves at least six months or until a permanent CEO is hired, whichever comes first.
As for who owns Fox shocks: Fox Factory Holding Corp. is publicly traded on Nasdaq as FOXF. It supplies suspension directly to bicycle and powered-vehicle makers, and it sells parts through shops, distributors and direct to riders.
How the forecast changed
| Measure | Prior guidance | New |
|---|---|---|
| Q3 net sales (quarter ended Oct 2, preliminary) | $355-380M | $336-340M |
| Q3 adjusted EBITDA | $46-54M | $38-42M, excluding ~$12M tariff refunds |
| 2026 net sales | $1.42-1.47B | $1.35-1.38B |
| 2026 adjusted EBITDA | $176-196M | $140-150M, excluding ~$14M tariff refunds |
Including the refunds, full-year adjusted EBITDA is $154-164M. The numbers imply a fourth quarter of $287-313M in sales and $23-29M in adjusted EBITDA. Analysts had expected fourth-quarter revenue near $367.56M and full-year sales near $1.44B.
FOXF shares fell about 9.5% on Friday, October 16, after dropping more than 18% in premarket trading.
Fox blames three areas. Marucci Sports, its baseball and softball business, had lower sales and margin, and Fox sold it for $225M on September 25. The Powered Vehicles Group had a supply disruption and higher steel, aluminum and freight costs, plus an unfavorable sales mix. Upfit work in the Aftermarket Applications Group suffered from lower chassis availability.
Bikes get one line. The Specialty Sports Group, which holds the bike business, saw “softer than expected bike sales” in the third quarter. No bike-specific figure came with it. Fox holds its third-quarter earnings call on November 5, 2026.
Doing the subtraction on Marucci
Marucci brought in about $33M of third-quarter sales against the $46M Fox assumed. That is a $13M gap. The overall quarter landed $15M to $44M under guidance, so by my math Marucci explains under half of the miss at the midpoint.
Over the full year the picture flips. The sale takes roughly $63M off 2026 sales, about $50M of it in the fourth quarter. The annual outlook fell by $70M to $90M, so the divestiture covers most of that cut. The third quarter is the part Marucci can’t fully explain, and Fox doesn’t say how much of the rest came from bikes.
My read
I read this as a margin and management story first, and a bike story second. That’s a judgment, since Fox gave no bike numbers.
Fox has been under pressure all year. On February 9, 2026, it signed a cooperation agreement with investor Engine Capital, added two directors and formed a Transformation Committee aimed at profit and operations. Chairman Dudley Mendenhall is retiring from the board at the 2026 annual meeting. Eight months later, the CEO is out and the forecast is down.
Dennison put his own money in along the way. He bought 22,000 shares at $14.20 on November 14, 2025, about $312,000 worth. When he bought 11,250 shares in June 2024, the stock was $44.30. A fall to roughly a third in 17 months is a plausible reason for the board’s move, though Fox hasn’t said so.
The longer view helps. Larry Enterline ran Fox from 2011 to 2018, and revenue grew from $272.7M in 2013 to $619.2M in 2018. Dennison succeeded him in June 2019. Fox describes itself as a company that adds complementary businesses, so selling Marucci reverses part of that approach.
Tariffs are the other thread. Fox booked about $14M of IEEPA tariff refunds across the second and third quarters and expects no more. The outlook also assumes input costs stay where they are today. If they climb, Fox’s own risk language lists pricing as one way to offset them. That’s boilerplate, not a price plan, but it’s the line I’d watch.
It’s a different kind of story from Velotric’s Series C funding. A bike brand’s finances tell you whether it will be around to honor a warranty. A supplier’s forecast tells you more about what bike brands are ordering than about any one bike.
What I’d do with a Fox-equipped bike on my list
I’d decide on the bike, not the supplier’s stock chart. Nothing in the announcement mentions warranty terms, prices or availability for Fox forks and shocks, and a complete bike’s price is set by the brand that spec’d it.
- Ask your shop who handles warranty and service on the Fox parts, and whether service parts for that fork or shock are in stock.
- If you’re ordering a bike that hasn’t shipped, ask what suspension it will ship with and when.
- Watch for end-of-season markdowns. Soft bike demand, if it’s industry-wide, tends to show up in shop pricing. Fox doesn’t claim that.
If you’re weighing a full-suspension e-bike, our rundown of the Scott E-Ville’s price and US status shows the availability questions worth asking. And if you’re still deciding what to ride, the guide to which bicycle type to buy comes first.
Still unknown
- Why Dennison left, and what his transition agreement says.
- How large the drop in bike sales was.
- Whether bike-maker orders, Fox suspension pricing or supply will change.
- Who the permanent CEO will be, and when Fox names one.
The November 5 call is the next chance to get bike-specific answers. Trade coverage of the news is at Bicycle Retailer & Industry News.
Photo: Marzocchi Bomber MX Comp Mountain bike fork by Kozuch, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped.
