Latest Headlines – Page 373
-
Article
Annecy plays host to major European events
The French alpine city of Annecy is playing host to three major sports-related events. Some 5,000 spectators attended the second European edition of IF3, the Freeski Film Festival, held in Annecy, France, from Sept. 30 to Oct. 2. Sponsored by EuroSima, the festival involved 31 films by 30 different producers. ...
-
Article
Growth of 4% for the global sports market
Recovering from the unusual drop of 2 percent that it endured in 2009, consumption of sporting goods grew by 4 percent in constant currencies to an estimated €226 billion worldwide in 2010, according to an annual report released by NPD Group. It returned to the growth rate experienced both in ...
-
Article
Sluggish sales in Europe and China fail to spoil Nike’s brilliant quarter
Some of Nike's European managers must have felt their ears burning this week as Charlie Denson, president of the Nike brand, pointed to the company's insufficient sharpness in Western Europe – the only region where the Nike brand's underlying sales were flat amid an otherwise buoyant performance for the three ...
-
Article
Rising costs begin to bite at Nike
The long-awaited hit on the gross margin of leading sporting goods companies materialized in Nike's results for its first fiscal quarter, as its gross margin fell by a hefty 2.7 percent to 44.3 percent. The drop was partly blamed on more discounts but was chiefly attributed to higher product costs. ...
-
Article
JD Sports lost £700,000 million in stock in riots
JD Sports Fashion said that £0.7 million (€761,100-$1.0m) in stock was looted from 16 of its stores during the riots that exploded in England between Aug. 6-10, with six stores in the London area suffering very significant thefts. The company also endured damage to stores in Birmingham, Manchester and Nottingham.The ...
-
Article
Derby welcomes Pon’s proposed takeover
Pon Holdings, a large Dutch car importer acquired Gazelle, the leading bicycle brand in the Netherlands, earlier this year. Pon followed up last week with a plan to make an offer for all the shares of Derby Cycle, the leading German bicycle maker, forming a group with leading brands in ...
-
Article
VF shifts top Euro staff to the head up Timberland
Patrik Frisk, who has been in charge of VF Corporation's outdoor and action sports unit in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) for the last two years, has been placed at the helm of Timberland after VF completed its acquisition of The Timberland Company, the owner of the Timberland ...
-
Article
Gresvig buys members to strike harder in Norwegian retail battle
Gresvig, the leading buying group in Norwegian sports retailing, has been buying up several of its largest retail members in the last months, as the opening of large stores focusing on cheap prices like those of XXL Sport is putting pressure on the business of smaller urban stores.Gresvig runs the ...
-
Article
J. Lindeberg goes under new ownership
Three investors from the Danish fashion industry have taken over J. Lindeberg, the Swedish golf and ski apparel brand. The majority of the company's shares was previously in the hands of Proventus, a Swedish investment fund, which led and intense turnaround effort at the company. Jonas Meerits, J. Lindeberg's chief ...
-
Article
Glenbrae works with Lanner in Sweden
The leading British brand of golf knitwear is now on the Scandinavian market through a partnership with Lanner, the leading Swedish producer of golf socks. The latter has set up a separate company, Glenbrae Scandinavia, that has the rights to distribute Glenbrae products only in Sweden for the moment, with ...
-
Article
Mixed results for sports at New Wave
The New Wave Group has reported a 9 percent drop in sales to 368 million Swedish kronor (€39.8m-$53.8m) in its sports & leisure division for the second quarter ended June 30. Its Craft brand had good growth, especially in the promotional clothing channel, while Cutter & Buck was weaker, mostly ...
-
Article
Alfa wants to double through exports, new products
The Norwegian ski and outdoor footwear company has embarked on an ambitious five-year strategic plan to roughly double its turnover through higher international sales as well as forays into new product categories. The plan follows the appointment of Pål Olimb as chief executive and a shareholder of Alfa in ...
-
Article
Bitter family row startles bicycle industry
A messy split between members of the Hon family and their competing brands of folding bicycles has mesmerized the bicycle industry in the last weeks – with serial injunctions, defecting distributors and lawyers inspecting stands at international fairs.The acrimonious battle in the Hon family became public in June when the ...
-
Article
Bike industry irons out tensions on pricing
The World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry (WFSGI) and the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) have held talks to quell industry concerns over a statement by Pat McQuaid, the UCI's chairman, who accused bicycle suppliers of turning out “unsafe” carbon frames at a cost of $30 to $40, only to ...
-
Article
Brazil raises bike duties as imports surge
The import duty on assembled bicycles in Brazil has been raised to 35 percent from 20 percent. Eduardo Musa, the president of Caloi, Brazil's biggest bike maker, told Bike Europe that there has been a huge influx of imported bicycles into Brazil: 50,000 units came into the country five years ...
-
Article
WFSGI speaks out against trade barriers
Sporting goods industry executives and government representatives from various countries called for reduced trade barriers on sporting goods at a special session hosted for the first time by the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry (WFSGI) at the Public Forum of the World Trade Organization in Geneva last Wednesday.They ...
-
Article
Cotton prices stabilize at last
The cotton bubble has burst. Prices are half what they were at their peak in March, when they reached about $1,400 for a candy (356 kilograms). Constraints on production capacity among Far East producers have also eased up. As a result the Indian government has decided not to impose any ...
-
Article
Uzbek labor practices are under fire
The use of forced child labor in harvesting cotton in Uzbekistan has gotten the attention of more than 60 international apparel companies, including Adidas, Li & Fung, New Balance, Columbia Sportswear, Eddie Bauer, Puma, PPR, VF Corporation, Burberry, C&A, Carrefour and The Jones Group. They have all vowed not to ...
-
Article
More organic cotton
Textile Exchange estimates that global retail sales of apparel, home and personal care items using organic cotton increased by 20 percent between 2009 and 2010, reaching a value of more than $5.61 billion and exceeding TE's earlier projection that they would go up to a level of $5.1 million. A ...
-
Article
Global sports apparel market rises by 5.1%
SGI's annual survey of the global branded sports clothing market at the wholesale stage shows that it did not perform as strongly in 2010 as the smaller and more concentrated athletic and rugged outdoor shoe markets, which rose by 13.2 and 12.8 percent, respectively, as we reported in July.According to ...
