Manganese Bronze Holdings the early 1960s Manganese Bronze Bearings Ltd (as it was then known) was taken over by a Dennis Poore investment vehicle, Villiers Engineering Ltd, a motorcycle company chiefly known for its range of engines, creating Manganese Bronze Holdings Ltd. This company subsequently bought Associated Motor Cycles Ltd, owners of the Norton AJS and Matchless motorcycle brands in 1964. Manganese absorbed part of the Birmingham Small Arms Company in 1973 - which included Carbodies, the Coventry-based London taxicab maker, under chairman Dennis Poore, as part of a rescue plan initiated by the British government. BSA Motorcycles interests trading as Triumph were
Norton Motorcycle Company was by far the smaller partner, Poore effectively secured a take-over of BSA-Triumph, forming Norton Villiers Triumph (NVT). The Triumph factory Meriden was the least modern; but workers engaged in a "sit-in", forming a workers' co-operative. Poore was CEO of Manganese Bronze Holdings, a company apparently more concerned with asset stripping than with motorcycle production. Subsequent political manoeuvrings led to the downfall of NVT, as taxpayer-assisted wranglings over amalgamations and sell-offs all but killed the once extensive UK motorcycle industry. In late 2008, Stuart Garner, a UK businessman, bought the rights to Norton from some US concerns and relaunched Norton