Aprilia makes most of their money from scooters and apparently the scooter market, in Europe particularly, has been in the dumps choking of their cash cow. From what I understand they have stopped scooter production but the motorcycle plant is still in operation.
A number of companies appear to be interested in "helping them out" read that buying them out including BMW and Bombardier. Aprilia and BMW had a partnership arrangement and Aprilia built the F650 (CS, I believe) for BMW for a while. Bombardier owns Rotax and has a vested interest in seeing Aprilia stay afloat as they sell them engines. I have even heard a rumour that the investment group that controls Ducati (which is headquartered in Dallas by the way
) may be interested. Even Harley has been rumored to be interested
.
The fly in these ointments is the Italian government who would prefer to see ownership of the company remain in Italy. This preference has resulted in longer term problems for some companies since the Italian suiters are not alway the best financed or have the most solid business plan/leadership.