Latest Headlines – Page 300
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Mixed results for Rapala
Net sales fell at Rapala VMC Corp. by 3 percent to €61.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2014 and by 5 percent to €273.2 million for the year, but they were unchanged in terms of constant currencies for the quarter and the year. The operating margin fell to 1.9 ...
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Active Brands will open a North American subsidiary
Active Brands, the Norwegian group of outdoor and winter sports brands, has appointed Henrik Lumholdt to head its activities in North America, ahead of the opening of a full-fledged regional head office in Colorado this summer. Lumholdt previously spent exactly ten years with Dale of Norway, as president of their ...
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Aqua Sphere and Phelps launch MP brand
Aqua Sphere caused a stir at Ispo Munich earlier this month with Michael Phelps, the star swimmer who has agreed to endorse a range of MP swim products marketed by the French-owned brand. The range should help Aqua Sphere to leverage its own distribution infrastructure, while expanding faster in markets from ...
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Anta recovers fast, reinforces market share
Anta Sports Products strengthened its position as the leading Chinese sports brand, with a sales increase of 22.5 percent to 8,922.7 million yuan renminbi (€1,253.5m-$1,426.5m) last year. It was the first major Chinese brand to report on a full year that marked a recovery for the Chinese sportswear market and ...
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Chinese real estate firm buys sports marketing giant
Dalian Wanda Group, one of the leading property companies in China, has agreed to pay €1.05 billion for Infront Sports & Media, a Swiss-based sports marketing company with major assets in China and other Asian countries. It has been owned since 2011 by Bridgepoint, a European private equity firm.Infront is ...
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Youngone gets control of Scott and Outdoor Research
Youngone Corp., the big Korean-based manufacturer of outdoor apparel, shoes and backpacks, made one more step into the branded business a few days ago by raising its stake in the Swiss-based Scott Sports Group to 50.01 percent. The move boosted its share price. Last year, it had silently acquired a ...
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New chief executive at Helly Hansen
Paul Stoneham, a seasoned executive in the consumer goods industry, is to take over next week as chief executive of Helly Hansen. Peter Sjølander, who led the Norwegian outdoor brand's rapid rise in the last eight years, will continue in an advisory role for the next six months, before starting ...
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New top manager for Didriksons
Johan Ekeroth became the new chief executive of Didriksons on Jan. 5, taking the place of Sören Andreasson, who remains as a significant shareholder in the company and as a member of the board of directors. Ekeroth, 45, was most recently Asics' sales director for the Nordic countries and Benelux. ...
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Shoes and clothing keep Amer growing
Amer Sports' continued expansion in footwear and apparel helped the group to book a 7.3 percent increase in revenues to €705.3 million in the last three months of the year, with growth of 6.0 percent in local currencies. The gross margin improved by one full percentage point to 43.0 percent ...
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Jarden will benefit from lower oil prices
Jarden Corp. sees the recent drop in oil prices as giving it a tailwind in the second half of this year because many of the group's products, including its household items, are made with oil derivatives and it typically takes six to nine months for lower commodity costs to affect ...
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Columbia ended 2014 strongly
Columbia Sportswear's sales jumped by 27 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014 to $677.0 million, generating a 57 percent higher operating profit, equal to 12.1 percent of sales, and a 51 percent higher net income of $55.6 million. On an adjusted basis, the operating margin reached 13.0 percent, up ...
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Sales climb at Peak Performance
Peak Performance saw its sales advance by 5.6 percent in constant currencies for the six months to the end of December, despite several store closures. The Swedish ski, outdoor and golf brand's turnover reached the equivalent of 585.9 million Danish kroner (€78.7m-$89.1m) for the half year, up by 3.6 percent. The performance ...
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Johnson Outdoors affected by late orders
Sales of outdoor and diving products at Johnson Outdoors dropped significantly in the first quarter until Jan. 2, but the company attributed most of the decline to a shift in orders as retailers adjusted their inventory management. The first quarter of Johnson's fiscal year is seasonally slow for the company, ...
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Gore introduces a new, versatile technology
About 30 brands have adopted the new Gore-Tex C-Knit backer fabric technology in some of the jackets and trousers that they are proposing for the next autumn/winter season, creating a new category in their collections. Developed by W.L. Gore & Associates, it is designed for broader usage than the more ...
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Attendance grows by 2.7% at Ispo Munich
As usual, Messe München put out its Final Report on the last day of the Ispo Munich show, announcing that close to 80,000 industry professionals from more than 100 countries had visited the fair - meaning 80,000 daily passes through the turnstiles. The figure indicated a certain stability as compared ...
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Strong showing for VF’s outdoor brands
All the three major brands in the Outdoor & Action Sports segment of VF Corp. had double-digit growth in local currencies during the fourth quarter of 2014. The biggest one, The North Face, enjoyed a 12 percent increase, driven by a jump of 30 percent in its direct-to-consumer (DTC) business.In ...
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Intersport grows by 2-3% worldwide
The sporting goods retailers affiliated with Intersport International Corp. raised their sales by around 2 percent to a total value of around €10.5 billion in 2014, with an increase of 3 percent in local currencies. Double-digit increases in football, running and fitness more than offset flat sales of outdoor products ...
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The Athlete’s Foot grows by 7.5%
Recovering from its previous decade's woes, The Athlete's Foot raised its retail sales by 7.5 percent to around €290 million in 2014, the first year that the banner was fully under the control of Intersport International Corp. The growth was a little smaller in terms of dollars and other local ...
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High bankruptcy rate in Norway
Strong competition from major sporting goods chains and online retailers in Norway has resulted in lower prices, reduced margins and a struggle to survive for many sporting goods stores. An article published by the Norwegian sporting goods industry association, Sportsbranjen, reveals that around 115 sporting goods retail operations have gone ...
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JD focuses on sport
JD Sports Fashion has always kept a presence in both the sports and fashion sectors. Even its core sports shops, managed under the JD banner, have kept a strong sports fashion component, and they have been the star performers within the retail group. Its controlling shareholder, Pentland Group, has a ...
