Latest Headlines – Page 437
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Quiksilver Hints At Possible Disposals
Quiksilver’s managers added fuel to speculation about the sale of DC Shoes or even the Roxy brand, as they confirmed that they were considering the divestment of assets to improve the group’s liquidity position and its capital structure. However, European banks have agreed to postpone until the end of June ...
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O’Neill Loses Ceo As It Prepares For The Future
O’Neill managers were dismayed to read in a Dutch newspaper last week that the company’s interim chief executive, Tom Heidman, was leaving to join a big food retailing group. Heidman is the chief executive of Logo International, the Dutch apparel company that acquired near-global rights for O’Neill about two years ...
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Adidas Group Predicts Weaker Results
After an outstanding performance in 2008 (see separate article), the Adidas Group warned last week that its sales, gross margin and earnings per share were all bound to drop this year. Both the Adidas and Reebok brands suffered sizeable declines in their order backlogs at the end of last year, ...
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Buoyant Adidas Again Makes Up For A Weak Reebok
The group’s dire projections for 2008 come after another quarter in which Adidas had to make up for dropping sales at Reebok. As a whole, the company’s revenues climbed by 6 percent to €2.574 billion for the last three months ...
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Reebok’S Integration In Europe Moves Into Phase Two
While they are way below those achieved by the Adidas brand, Reebok’s profit margins improved significantly in Europe last year, and the process is bound to continue in the next couple of years through a number of new initiatives that should also have a positive impact on revenues. The ...
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Foot Locker’S Sales Fall, Quarter Ends With Loss
Fourth-quarter sales for Foot Locker dropped by 11 percent to $1,317 million, with a 7.3 percent decline in comparable store sales. The rate of decline was 7 percent on a currency-neutral basis. The gross margin increased, though, rising by 3.3 percentage points to 28.7 percent, reflecting less promotional activity. ...
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K-swiss Closes French Sales Office, European Sales Plummet
K-Swiss has decided to throw in the towel in the French market, where it has not been able to reach the intended economies of scale in spite of big investments on its classics line over the past three and a half years. Renaud Barillon, who was running the subsidiary, is ...
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Lotto Grows More Softly
According to preliminary sales figures, Lotto Sport Italia managed a small increase in direct and wholesale-equivalent sales to €307 million last year, compared with €300 million in 2007, in spite of a decline in the second half that is fully attributable to the global economic crisis. In the first half ...
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Nautilus’ Loss Shrinks As It Cuts Costs
Nautilus’ turnover plunged by 37 percent for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, winding up at $92.3 million. However, the net loss narrowed, at $41.2 million versus a loss of $45.7 million for the previous year’s quarter. Operating loss fell by less than 1 percent to $47.3 million. The figures ...
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Huge Sales Increase For A Chinese Company, Anta
Revenues for the year ended Dec. 31 increased by a staggering 54.8 percent to 4,626.8 million renmimbi (€532.6m-$677.3m) for Anta Sports Products, a Chinese company that designs, develops, manufactures and markets sportswear. Gross profits were also up by 84.9 percent to RMB 1,848.6 million (€212.8m-$270.6m). Footwear and apparel ...
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A Great Winter Brings Cross-country Back Into Business
The cross-country ski market has had a couple of bad years. Just as Nordic sports seemed ready to skyrocket in popularity in some countries because of a tendency toward health-and wellness-related sports, especially in the center of the continent, the snow just would not fall. A potential run on the ...
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Taking A Closer Look At European Boardsports
Surf-related or surf-inspired products were bought by 30.6 percent of the European population at large last year and by 54.8 percent of those who practice summer and winter boardsports. Forty percent of the people who live in coastal areas are consumers of surf products, whereas they make up only two ...
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Sailing For Women, A New Market For A Snow Sports Firm
Morpho, a French brand of snowshoes, won Ispo’s BrandNew Awards for its women’s sailing pants, developed under the company’s accessory brand Sailing for Women. The sailing apparel market is a relatively difficult one, with very few players, because the clothing is highly technical. Morpho’s sailing gear has padding in areas ...
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Chinese Market’S Contraction Leads To Tension Between Retailers And Brands
Heralded as a welcome bonanza in connection with last summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing, the Chinese sporting goods market is heading for an angry clash between international brands and their retail partners, after weak sell-throughs in the second half of last year. Sitting on large inventories and facing a slowdown ...
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Sports Direct Bucks The Negative Trend In The U.K.
Though many British retailers are struggling through the economic downturn (see previous issue), Sports Direct International is thriving. For the 13 weeks that ended Jan. 25, sales grew by 12.0 percent to £355 million (€398.3m-$509.1m) and the gross profit inched up by 0.7 percent to £143 million (€160.5m-$205.1m). The gross ...
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Go Sport Continues To Bleed
Groupe Go Sport has reported a net loss of €15.9 million for 2008 on 3.6 percent lower sales of €726.6 million, against a net profit of €12.9 million. Excluding extraordinary gains from the sale of the last six store leases that it owned, the French sports retailer had an indicative ...
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Active Sportswear Takes Over H²O
Active Sportswear has snatched up H²O, adding this 42-year-old Danish sportswear brand to a portfolio of house brands that includes Color Kids, Kilmanock and FZ Forza. Several companies had shown interest in H²O, reportedly including Hummel, before and after the recent bankruptcy of Buksesnedkeren, its former parent company (see previous ...
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Marie Valois Plans A Comeback
Marie Valois, the French women’s golf apparel brand, has overhauled its business to deal with shrinking sales in the French golf market and in other European countries. It wants to broaden its range but move away from the European market. After several years of decline, Marie Valois was acquired ...
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Maier Is Fit For The Future, But Puts Two Brands On Hold
Maier Sports, the German apparel brand, believes it is prepared for the future after filing for insolvency under the German bankruptcy code in late 2008. Its operating business has been transferred to a new company that bears the name of the old one: Maier Sports GmbH & Co. KG. The ...
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Winter Sports Boost Head's Operating Profit
Despite a gain in sales and in operating profit, Head N.V. has reported a net loss for the fourth quarter that ended Dec. 31. The loss of €1.3 million compares with a profit of €700,000 for the same period in 2007. It comes even though sales grew by 5.4 percent ...
