One of the Portland area’s most enduring businesses is at the end of the line.

Vancouver-based home exercise equipment company BowFlex filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Monday and agreed to sell its assets to a Taiwanese business for $37.5 million.

BowFlex said it will continue operating while in bankruptcy but filed a notice with Washington state Tuesday indicating it expects the bankruptcy will trigger 202 layoffs in Vancouver in April, though it added the job cuts are “not certain” and ultimately up to the new owner.

“As a result of the post-pandemic environment and persistent macroeconomic headwinds, we conducted a comprehensive strategic review and determined this was the best path forward for our Company,” BowFlex CEO Jim Barr said in a statement Tuesday.

The new owner would be Johnson Health Tech Retail, a Taiwanese company that sells workout equipment and lifestyle products under several brands including Horizon Fitness, Vision Fitness and Synca. Johnson has a U.S. office in Wisconsin.

The asset sale is contingent on approval from the bankruptcy court and Johnson could conceivably be outbid by another buyer. Johnson didn’t immediately respond to questions about its plans for the BowFlex brand or Vancouver office.

In a notice to state officials Tuesday, BowFlex said the “best information available” is that the company will lay off a portion of its Vancouver workers when the sale to Johnson closes April 19. It put that number at 202 in Tuesday’s notice. The bankruptcy filing is no surprise: BowFlex warned last month that it was in danger of insolvency.

The company’s sales rocketed upward during the pandemic, when commercial gyms closed, and its market value exceeded $500 million.

But business fell precipitously in the aftermath and BowFlex’s stock lost nearly all its value. Known sometimes in its history as Bowflex, Direct Focus and Nautilus, the company started in 1986 with a line of home gyms that bore its name. It grew rapidly during the 1990s, selling its BowFlex gyms on late-night TV infomercials.

The Vancouver company thought it had crafted a formula for hawking products on TV and branched out into selling mattresses. The direct marketing effort failed, though, so it bought the Nautilus line of home workout equipment and took that company’s name.

Desperate for cash, the company sold rights to the Nautilus brand last year and changed its name back to BowFlex.