Latest Headlines – Page 440
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Besson Re-organizes Distribution Under Austrian Rule
Besson, the originally Italian skiwear brand that is now under Austrian control, has reshuffled its distribution for Austria, Croatia, Germany, Slovenia and Switzerland. These countries were covered until the end of last year by Master Sport, an Austrian distribution company, with the exception of Switzerland where no representative has been ...
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Economy Hits Fitness Segment, Which In Turn Hits Amer
For all the improvements that came about in its winter sports business, Finland’s Amer group still reported flat sales for its fourth quarter as it suffered a drastic and rapid decline in its fitness business. The group’s sales remained nearly flat at €495.3 million for the last quarter, which amounted ...
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Under Armour Launches New Lines In Europe, Cuts Costs
Under Armour is going ahead with a soft launch of its first football and running shoes in Europe, allocating low maximum levels per country and working mainly with specialized retailers to create the demand. A network of “tech reps” in France, Germany, Austria and the U.K. starts to present ...
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Columbia Continues Its Uphill Fight In Europe
Columbia Sportswear said last week that it is cutting back planned investments in marketing and retailing after a poor fourth quarter in which group revenues fell by 6 percent to $354.9 million, with three percentage points attributable to foreign exchange rates. In terms of dollars, sales in Europe fell by ...
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The War Of The Karhus Is Over Maybe
Karhu Holding and Karhu Sporting Goods (KSG) of Finland, the two companies that were at loggerheads over the rights to the Karhu trademark last year, have reached an amicable settlement. Karhu Holding, a Dutch company headed by Huub Valkenburg, was confirmed as the owner of the trademark, while KSG, its ...
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Skins Is Taking All Operations To Switzerland
Skins, the Australian supplier of compression underwear, is moving its global head office from Sydney to Zug, Switzerland. From the company’s chief executive to the chief financial officer, the global marketing manager and other functions, all have started moving to Zug this month, in an effort to support the brand’s ...
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Wolverine Sees Record 2008 Despite Fourth Quarter
Net income at Wolverine World Wide fell by 6 percent to $24.1 million for the fourth quarter ended Jan. 3. Operating profit was off by 15 percent in the period to $32.3 million and the operating margin went down by 1.4 percentage points to 9.3 percent. The company’s total fourth-quarter ...
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STRONGER DOLLAR PUSHES TIMBERLAND’S RESULTS DOWN The Timberland Company...
STRONGER DOLLAR PUSHES TIMBERLAND’S RESULTS DOWN The Timberland Company saw an 11.8 percent drop in sales to $390.6 million in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31. Growth by SmartWool and Timberland Pro could not override the net closure of 28 stores, licensing of its North American apparel business, and ...
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Intersport Picks Kettler As Preferred Supplier
After two years of negotiation, the German company has become a premium supplier of Intersport International for fitness equipment, developing special make-ups and providing a platform for further expansion in some markets where the brand is under-represented. One of these markets is Italy, where Kettler has also signed ...
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Sport Finance Licenses Insight For A Large Part Of Europe
Sport Finance, the successful French licensing partner of Kappa and Robe di Kappa, has signed a licensing deal with Bleach Pty of Australia to distribute its Insight brand of fashionable action-sports-inspired clothing in France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the U.K. The brand is currently sold in about ...
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New Management At Elan After A Flat 2008
Robert Ferko, former president of a Slovenian food company, was appointed chief executive at Elan, the Slovenian ski group. He replaces Ivan Strlekar, who started just last March to implement the restructuring at Elan, and was employed on an interim basis. The change comes after Slovenian state-controlled investment funds and ...
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Luxottica’S 2008 Sales Boosted By Oakley
Luxottica closed 2008 with an increase in sales of 4.7 percent to €5.202 billion from €4.966 billion a year earlier thanks to the purchase of Oakley, which was completed in November 2007. At constant currency rates, sales rose by 10.7 percent. However, the figure is short of financial analysts’ expectations ...
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Brunswick’S Sales Plunge In Last Quarter
Brunswick Corporation’s fitness division, represented mainly by Life Fitness, suffered a 20 percent drop in sales to $171.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2008. Brunswick noted that both consumer and commercial equipment sales declined by double digits in the fitness segment, which was a setback from prior quarters, when ...
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Currency Effects Magnify Sales Drop At Johnson Outdoors
The 8.2 percent decline to $69.8 million included 3.1 percent from foreign currencies. For the first quarter that ended Jan. 2, Johnson Outdoors recorded a loss from continuing operations of $6.9 million, compared with a loss of $3.6 million the year prior. The company blamed poor holiday sales ...
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Outdoor Mall Indicates Strength In China
Probably the world’s largest outdoor mall was inaugurated in Beijing last month, with a smattering of international and Asian brands on a sales surface of 6,500 square meters. Oddly called Neil, the mall features shop-in-shops with brand names from Columbia to Deuter, Fjällräven, Lafuma, Meindl, The North Face, Vaude and ...
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China Is Trying To Shore Up A Declining Industry
Some 20 million of the 130 million migrant workers in China have lost their jobs in all the sectors of the economy, according to a survey conducted by China’s Agriculture Ministry. Half of the losses occurred in the third quarter of 2008. Much of the employment loss is attributed to ...
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The French market for sports shoes fell by 2 percent...
The French market for sports shoes fell by 2 percent in value in 2008, according to NPD Group, but the number of pairs was stable. Sales of sports and leisure shoes priced below €60 a pair grew by 3 percent in volume, and they came to represent 76 percent of ...
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JD Sports Fashion has announced that its earlier prediction of...
JD Sports Fashion has announced that its earlier prediction of negative sales in the first part of the year was too dire, as good sales through the Christmas season have continued through January. As a result, management says that profit for the year ending Jan. 31 will be slightly above ...
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Intersport International has disclosed a licensing deal with Warner Bros....
Intersport International has disclosed a licensing deal with Warner Bros. Consumer Products to make a co-branded range of Looney Tunes Active skiwear with its own private label for apparel, Etirel. Similar contracts related to children’s characters may follow. The Looney Tunes deal, which lasts for two seasons, will start with ...
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Nearly 28 months after acquiring the Greg Norman Collection from...
Nearly 28 months after acquiring the Greg Norman Collection from the Adidas Group in October 2006, MacGregor Golf is divesting the apparel unit to Tharanco Lifestyle, a New York private holding company that owns nearly 20 different apparel brands. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but Tharanco is ...
