M.I. Crow, led by Kyiv-based entrepreneur Oleg Krot, snapped up the tractor firm for €17 million after two previous auctions failed to attract buyers, leading officials to reduce the price by 40% from €28.7 million.

The acquisition means M.I. Crow now controls essential Ursus assets, including production plants in eastern Polish cities Lublin and Dobre Miasto, valuable properties, extensive R&D documentation, production machinery and the rights to the Ursus trademark.

M.I. Crow’s owners say that they are committed to preserving Ursus’s agricultural heritage while modernizing the company for the future.

They also promised to retain the current workforce, add specialized staff and enhance Ursus’s production capacity, with Krot scheduled to meet employees in the coming week to outline the company’s development plans.

Final years of Ursus

In 2015, Ursus looked at expanding with contracts in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Zambia, and introduced electric vehicle prototypes, funded partly by the government.

But these efforts fell short, creditors withdrew and the company faced immediate loan recalls. Ursus then sought court protection and sold one of its plants for €1.4 million, still far from enough to cover its loans.

Tractor sales also plunged: Ursus sold 904 units in 2016, ranking fourth in Poland, but by 2018, it had dropped to eighth with 354 units. In the first half of 2021, sales fell to just 42 and Ursus closed that year with a €13.3 million loss.

The bankruptcy announcement marks the close of Ursus’s 125-year legacy and nearly a century of tractor production under its brand. Ursus developed its first tractor prototype in 1918 in Warsaw, and by 1922, its factory was producing the early “ciągówka” models with 25 horsepower. Today, nearly half of Poland’s 1.5 million agricultural tractors are Ursus machines.