Picnic-PostNL's €19.5m losses in last three years: How is this team still racing?
Personnel costs at 134.5% of revenue in 2024 reveal an unsustainable model
The financial woes in the Dutch cycling world keep stacking up. In November Money in Sport reported on the €6.1 million operating loss incurred by Team Visma Lease-A-Bike in 2024. In December we turned our attention to the equipment companies and reported on huge losses at Accell of over €700 million in 2023 and 2024 and a badly timed $0.8 billion acquisition of Dorel Sports, the owner of Cannondale and Schwinn, by PON.Bike.
Now we discover from a recent annual filing in Netherlands that the 2024 financials of SMS Cycling BV, signed off on 16 December 2025, reveal that Team Picnic-PostNL incurred a loss of €6.2 million in 2024 on revenues of only €11.7 million.
Fast forward to 22 December 2025 and the official announcement after weeks of speculation that Oscar Onley had joined Ineos Grenadiers. Money in Sport concludes that the compensation received from INEOS Grenadiers was critical to the survival of Team Picnic-PostNL.
Breaking down why Picnic-PostNL desperately needed the Onley compensation money:
Compare the team’s performance and financial stability with other pro teams for which financial information is available;
Look at the team’s performance in the period 2022 to 2024, the period when the team racked up €19.5 million of losses;
Investigate the €18.8 million hole in the team’s balance sheet and who is providing the financing to allow it to continue to operate; and
Consider the role of UCI in protecting riders in situations where a team runs into financial trouble.
Benchmarking to other teams
Let’s see how Picnic-PostNL’s financials stacks up with other teams Money in Sport surveyed:
Picnic-PostNL is the smallest team in the survey with revenues of only €11.7 million. It recorded growth of 5.8% in 2024 which was the third lowest of the teams surveyed.
The operating profits chart shows the horrendous losses of both Visma LAB and Picnic-PostNL, the difference being that Visma LAB is the largest team in the sample with revenues of €51.9 million whereas Picnic-PostNL is the smallest. Most of the teams surveyed operate around breakeven.
The chart on the right shows the ratio of personnel costs to revenues with Picnic-PostNL by far the highest. Teams with ratios exceeding 65-70% will find it tough to breakeven which makes the Picnic-PostNL ratio of 134.5% seem truly inexplicable.
(Movistar’s personnel costs ratio is also very high in 2024. It received €4 million contract compensation from INEOS Grenadiers regarding Carlos Rodríguez which helped the team to avoid incurring a significant loss.)
The final comparison shows the net assets from the balance sheets of each team. Teams with red figures have liabilities which exceed assets which is a bad situation to be in. However the Picnic-PostNL deficit is on an entirely different level to the other teams, almost 10 times worse than the team above it, i.e. Intermarche which has recently merged with Lotto. Looking at this chart, it’s reasonable to wonder why this team is not already bankrupt and out of business.
Picnic-PostNL performance between 2022 to 2024
Detailed income statement information is available from 2022 but not for years before then. The first chart shows that the lack of revenue has been an issue for several years. PostNL came on board as a sponsor in 2024 and helped the team grow revenues by 5.8%. Picnic supermarket arrived as a sponsor ahead of the 2025 season, not impacting 2024 revenues.
The second chart shows that the high personnel costs mentioned in the team comparisons above have been an issue for Picnic-PostNL since 2022. Team ownership and management are clearly choosing to run huge losses by spending far beyond their income. This is not a sustainable strategy unless there is a wealthy benefactor in the background making it possible. The accumulated losses under this strategy total almost €20 million:
The hole in the Balance Sheet
We have seen above that the balance sheet of SMS Cycling BV looks terrible with net liabilities of €18.8 million at the end of 2024 resulting from the heavy operating losses incurred since 2022:
The second chart shows that the company borrowings increased to €14.6 million at the end of 2024. The gap between the net liabilities and the financing liabilities is mainly attributable to ‘deferred income’ such as advance payments received from sponsors.
The external auditor’s report
New wording was added to the 2024 audit report (compared to the 2023 report) which confirms that the external auditors, De Jong & Laan Controle B.V., had heightened concerns about whether the company can survive when they belatedly signed off their 2024 report almost a year later:
In accounting terms, "going concern" means a company is expected to stay in business for at least the next 12 months and can pay its bills as they come due. When auditors flag concerns about this—as they've done here—it's a major red flag signaling the company may not survive the year.
The fact that they signed off their 2024 report on 16 December 2025—just six days before the Oscar Onley transfer was announced suggests the auditors were waiting to see if the team could secure funding to prove they'd survive 2025.
It’s rare to see auditors drawing attention to uncertainties about a company’s viability in their audit opinion. They tend to be reluctant to do so since the wording of their opinion might cause banks and other funders to withdraw their support for a company, tipping it into bankruptcy or administration.
