Latest Headlines – Page 486
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Karstadt Teams Up With Springer For E-commerce
Thomas Middelhoff, the former chief executive of the Bertelsmann publishing house who has been steering the turnaround of Karstadt Quelle, likes to make big alliances to help restructure the company of which is he is now chairman and chief executive. Shortly after announcing its decision to get rid of the ...
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Billabong Reports Big Growth In Europe And The Americas
Sales rose by 26 percent to $610.7 million Australian dollars (€366.7m-$483.6m) and net profit increased by14 percent to A$90.5 million (€54.3m-$71.7m) for the six months ended Dec. 31. Excluding the acquisition of Nixon, which boosted especially Billabong International’s turnover in North America, sales rose by about 19 percent overall. ...
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Iconix Buys Danskin
Iconix Brand Group is making the third acquisition if a brand in six months, this time for Danskin, the American fitness, dance and yoga and apparel brand for women. Iconix has agreed to pay $70 million for the brand, plus $15 million in cash or stock, for Danskin’s intellectual property. ...
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2007 Will Mark A Transition For K-swiss
K-Swiss has a well-known new testimonial - Anna Kournikova – and it will use her image in television and in advertisements in fashion and lifestyle magazines. K-Swiss is hoping that the attractive Russian tennis player will attract more consumers aged between 13 and 30, and bring the brand back to ...
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Mike Ashley’S Sports Direct Lays Out Strong Financials As It Readies Feb. 27 Ipo
Sports Direct International, formerly known as Sports Soccer and then as Sports World International, is set to go public on the London Stock Exchange on Feb. 27, offering 40 percent of Mike Ashley’s shares at a price of between 250 and 310 pence a share. This would value his company ...
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Intersport Boosts Its Brand In Italy And Sweden, Grows Quickly In France
Intersport Italia is opening the first company-owned store in the peninsula next month. Located in the city of Reggio Emilia, not far from Intersport Italia’s head office, it will measure 1,000 square meters and will be based on a brand-new store concept, adapted to the special competitive environment of the ...
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Go Sport Goes Deeper Into The Red, But Wins Market Share In A Flat Market
Preliminary estimates indicate that the French sporting goods market was flat or slightly down in 2006 for the first time in many years. Nevertheless Groupe Go Sport continued to gobble up market shares as its two retail chains, Go Sport and Courir, recorded sales increases of 5.9 percent and 13.2 ...
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Amer Sports Raises Profits Slightly
Amer Sports is still confident that the synergies with Salomon, acquired in October 2005, will help it to post higher earnings in 2007 and 2008, despite the warm weather.For the Finnish-based group, which is now by far the world’s biggest supplier of sports equipment, net earnings grew last year slightly ...
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Amer Has Nearly Completed Salomon’S Integration In Europe
Amer Sports has slightly reshuffled the management team in the Europe, Middle East and Africa division, led by François Fauroux out of Munich, while its integration of Salomon proceeds at a rapid pace, combining back office functions to achieve critical mass and to have more efficient local organizations in place ...
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Mountain Hardwear Searches For New Agents For Montrail
Columbia Sportswear is integrating two of its own recent acquisitions, Mountain Hardwear and Montrail, in different ways in Europe, looking for new agents rather than distributors. Montrail is searching for new agents to represent Montrail footwear in Spain and Germany, where its business was minimal. The brand is not represented ...
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Rosenkranz Exits Fischer After A Relatively Good Financial Year
Stefan Rosenkranz, who has acted as general manager of Fischer’s alpine ski business for the last seven years, is leaving the Austrian ski maker to look for another challenge within the sporting goods business. The 41-year-old executive, who previously worked at Marker, will be replaced by Gerhard Leitner who has ...
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Blizzard Starts Producing In The Ukraine
Blizzard, the Austrian ski company in which Tecnica Group bought two-thirds of the shares last October, reportedly for very little money, will start production at its new robotized ski factory at Mukachevo, in the Ukraine, next month. With a capacity of 300,000 pairs per year, it will begin with about ...
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Fenix Outdoor Lays Out Good Results
The Swedish outdoor group reports a 29 percent increase in net profit to 58.4 million Swedish kronor (€6.3m-$8.3m) in 2006 on 13 percent higher net sales of 742.8 million SEK(€80.4m-$105.3m). Operating profit (EBIT) grew by 22 percent to 88.1 million SEK (€9.5m-$12.4m), but it would have risen by 50 percent ...
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Exel And One Way Continue To Fight Over French Biathlon Champion
Exel says it has won another round in its legal dispute against its Finnish competitor One Way Sport over their sponsorship of Raphaël Poirée, the French biathlon hero who won again in the world championships in Anterselva, Italy. At the beginning of the current winter season Poirée did not continue ...
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Sugoi Steps Up Its European Operations
Sugoi, the leading Canadian brand of bicycle-oriented performance apparel, is reorganizing and expanding its European sales network, working hard to set up a European distribution center, probably located in Germany or in the Netherlands, before the end of this year. The company currently delivers its merchandise about 1,000 doors all ...
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Ispo Reports A 5% Increase In Attendance
An rise in the proportion of visitors from the fashion and footwear retail circuits from 5 to 15 percent of the total attendance allowed the winter session of the ISPO fair ended last Wednesday to break another record, auguring well for the new ISPO Sport & Style concept being launched ...
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Sporting Goods Fared Better In Nothern Europe Last Year Than Around The Alps
The European sporting goods market grew by only 1 percent in 2006, according to FEDAS, the European sporting goods retailers’ federation, but its estimate only covers the five big countries where it is represented – Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and Italy – which are located in the Alps or bordering ...
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Big Drops For Snow Sports In 2007
Only a few of the industry executives whom we interviewed at the ISPO fair were positive in their outlook for retailers’ pre-orders. One of these exceptions is K2, which is still in a growth mode in Europe (more about this company in the next issue). Another one is Burton, whose ...
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Jjb Faces More Aggravation Over Replica Shirts
The British sports retailer could face another legal and public relations nightmare after a British consumer magazine announced that it intended to sue JJB Sports on behalf of consumers who have bought overpriced replica shirts. The controversy goes back to a ruling by Britain’s Office of Fair Trading (OFT) ...
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Reebok Does More Marketing, Appoints Griffiths As Its New Eurochief
Nigel Griffiths, general manager of Nike ACG, is leaving the company to take over as Reebok’s new European chief. He will effectively succeed David Singleton, who announced his departure a few weeks ago. Griffiths held the leading position at Nike ACG for 3 years, after a stint as sales manager ...
