Several candidates have filed offers to take over Crossways, a popular French brand of golf apparel that went into receivership early last month. The company is under observation for six months until November, but it appears likely that the rescue will come much earlier.
The receiver should make a decision by the middle of July on offers to be submitted until the start of this week. The candidates so far include companies from France and elsewhere, some involved in the golf business and others not. The company’s conundrum was caused by financial issues dating back two years, along with bad payments, as the French apparel market suffered in the last years.
Based near Lille, Crossways is an apparel brand most popular for its Scottish-made pullovers. It currently belongs to Alain Devilder, a former French distributor for Pringle, who established the brand in 1986. Crossways’ sales expanded steadily in the last years to reach about €5.4 million in 2008 and they remained roughly stable last year, with about 85 percent of the turnover coming from the French market. Some 30 percent of Crossways’ sales take place in golf stores, against 70 percent in other outlets.
Several other French golf apparel brands have been less fortunate in the last years. Marie Valois, once a French market leader in women’s golf apparel, was meant to benefit from a capital injection in 2008 after it was acquired by Lionel Provost, the owner of a company specializing in the organization of golf events. A few months later the shareholder decided to scale back the brand, to halt nearly all European retail sales and to focus on emerging markets. But Grégoire Provost, the owner’s son, who was meant to run Marie Valois, admitted last week that the brand had in fact been dormant for several months.
On the other hand, Peter Fleming has been saved from liquidation by three private investors and is to be revived later this year. In the last two decades, the brand introduced Gore-Tex in golf footwear and it won several prizes with the launch of pioneering weather protection apparel. Faced with financial issues, Peter Fleming has not come forward with any fresh ranges for several years and after the liquidation it was unable to trade with customers outside of its own store in Paris. However, the new shareholders are preparing the launch of new products in the next months, focusing on the Peter Fleming brand’s strength in technical outerwear.
