Latest Headlines – Page 483
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Jjb Is Confident But Not Ecstatic Over Its 2007 Results
JJB Sports is no longer the biggest sporting goods retailer in the UK, but it has seemingly turned the corner after a long, slow bend of weakening margins, largely due to the price competition from Sports Direct/Sports World. The competition eased somewhat before JJB’s financial year ended last Jan. 28, ...
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Blacks Antagonizes Suppliers
Several weighty suppliers are terminating their relationships with Blacks Leisure, apparently due to some tightened purchasing conditions that the British outdoor retailer sought to impose earlier this year in an effort to redress its sagging margins. Mountain Boot Co., the British distributor for Deuter backpacks and Scarpa climbing shoes, ...
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Stadium Acquires New Dimensions
Stadium is waist deep in a 4-step process that it says will take it to “the next level.” The most recent step – the third one – was the opening last Friday of its first store under the Stadium Golf banner, located on the premises of the former Edins Golf ...
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New Wave Buys Cutter & Buck
For $156.5 million in cash, Cutter & Buck has been acquired by New Wave Group, the publicly-traded Swedish group whose assets include the Craft, Kosta Boda and Seger brands. The resulting synergies will give New Wave better coverage of the U.S. market, while providing the group with an upper-tier golf ...
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Amer’S Winter Sports Sales Melt In Warm Weather
Poor snow conditions across most of Europe claimed another victim as Finland’s Amer Sports group revealed that its winter sports equipment sales had roughly halved during the first quarter. Since winter sports sales are usually small in the first quarter, the impact of this hit remains limited. However, on the ...
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New Balance Has A New Ceo
Robert T. DeMartini, 45, has been named chief executive of New Balance. He replaces Jim Davis, owner of the company, who has been the CEO for 35 years. Davis will remain chairman of the company. DeMartini was most recently group vice president of Tyson Foods’ consumer products division, which generates ...
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European Lonsdale Licensee Wins A Round In A London Court
Lonsdale Sports, the British company behind the eponymous boxing brand owned by Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct group, is preparing to appeal a ruling issued by a London High Court judge last month that awarded substantial damages to a licensee due to an alleged breach of contract. The case was ...
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Adidas Takes Cricket Deal From Admiral
Adidas continues to trail Nike in the overall UK market, as indicated in one of the three volumes of the pioneering market research report that we have just published on Northern Europe. In a high-profile move to diversify its business in the UK, Adidas has obtained a 5-year endorsement deal ...
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Champion Regionalizes Southern Europe
Dimitris Matemtzis, who has done an excellent job as country manager of Champion Europe in Greece, has been appointed to the new position of manager of Southern Europe and the Middle East. He will be in charge of the whole Mediterranean Basin – excluding Italy and France but including Spain ...
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More On Puma And Ppr
The value of Puma’s shares on the Frankfurt stock exchange has eased down to around €336, indicating that investors have given up on the notion that PPR may improve its “firm and definitive” offer at €300 a share. They have also basically discarded the idea that someone else may make ...
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Airesis Loses More Money
Airesis, the Swiss holding company that controls Le Coq Sportif and Boards & More, plunged into losses last year as a result of abundant investments in marketing and human resources for Le Coq as well as restructuring measures at Boards & More. Airesis’ total revenues were ...
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Orange 21 Reports Another, Larger Loss But Sees Stability Ahead
The parent company of Spy Optics had to rid itself of excess inventory in 2006, adding $3 million in costs and causing its gross margin to shrink to 41 percent, as compared to 49 percent in 2005. The net loss for the year was $7.3 million, compared with a loss ...
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Optics-focused Strategy Pays Off For Oakley In 1st Quarter
Oakley’s operating income jumped by 243.2 percent to $9,733,000 in the 1st quarter, ended March 31, while sales climbed by 31.3 percent to $199.2 million. The gross margin grew to 54.3 percent from 53.1 percent in the year-ago period. Net income rose to $5,743,000, compared with $1,907,000. The strong results ...
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Wolverine Slightly Increases Guidance, Promotes New Ceo
The new Patagonia footwear range, licensed by Wolverine World Wide, likely added about $30 million to the American footwear group’s turnover in its 1st quarter ended March 24. The inaugural launch of this footwear collection helped boost turnover for the “Outdoor Group,” which includes the Merrell, Sebago and Patagonia brands, ...
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Executive Reshuffling In The Central European Outdoor Industry
The Central European outdoor industry has been shaken by two more major management changes in the past few days: - Maximilian Hofbauer left The North Face last week after working as its country manager for Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Hofbauer’s successor is Udo Heyder, so far sales manager ...
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Vibram Hires A New Ceo
Adriano Zuccala is new chief executive of the Italian supplier of high-quality soles. The 52-year-old executive, who comes out of the chemistry industry, replaces Ambrogio Merlo who has left after 4 years at the head of the company. Vibram has given no information about the reasons for the split, but ...
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Gucci’S Parent Company Is Making A Friendly Bid For Puma
PPR Group, the large French retail and luxury conglomerate, has confirmed its intention to launch a full bid for Puma valuing the company at about €5.27 billion, after its acquisition of a 27.1 percent stake and blocking minority belonging to Mayfair, a holding company for the German Herz family. The ...
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Mike Ashley Buys A Stake In Adidas
Mike Ashley, who made a fortune by floating his Sports World/Sports Direct business on the stock exchange in February, has bought a 3.14 percent stake in Adidas. His holding in the German company is now worth about €270 million, but Adidas’ share price has gone up by about 19 percent ...
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Decathlon Sees A Sales Decline In France
Confirming a rumor, but without giving any details, Décathlon admitted that it suffered a drop in the domestic French market on a comparable basis in 2006, probably for the first time since the group was founded 30 years earlier. An unusually laconic press release didn’t provide any insight into Décathlon’s ...
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The French Market Is Polarized
The French sporting goods market remained virtually flat last year at a level of €8.9 billion after VAT, according to an annual study by the country’s very active sporting goods retailers’ federation (FPS), which covers also sports bicycles, fishing gear and other products not included in the estimates of some ...
