Latest Headlines – Page 508
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Decathlon Grows By 9.4%
Décathlon saw its operating profit before amortization and tax (EBITDA) increase by 4.3 percent to €388.2 million in 2005 on 9.4 percent higher sales of €3,741 million before VAT. On a comparable basis, sales rose by 5.3 percent, but most of the growth took place outside France, whose share of ...
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Europe Is Nike’S Biggest Challenge Now
Western Europe is probably “the most challenging market” in the world for Nike at the moment, says Charlie Denson, the former European manager who recently became sole manager of the Nike brand worldwide, and some company officials predict that it may take another two quarters before the company will be ...
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Pentland Gets A Stake In Medium Design
Medium Design has bought a 50 percent stake in Medium Design Group, a company based in Santa Barbara, California that puts out an American brand of luxury sneakers called Medium, generating annual sales of about $3.5 million. The balance of the shares will remain in the hands of Eric Meyer, ...
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Sergio Tacchini Launches A Big “Sport Ego” Campaign
While raising its total advertising and sports marketing budget to 16 percent of sales this year, Sergio Tacchini is launching a new advertising campaign in Europe around the “Sport Ego” tagline, in an effort to project a younger, more cosmopolitan and more dynamic image of the brand. To develop its ...
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Under Amour Beefs Up European Operations
Tony O’Neill, who previously headed up sales in continental Europe at TaylorMade-Adidas Golf, has been appointed as European sales director of Under Armour, based at the company’s new European office in Amsterdam. He reports to Ryan Wood, one of the company’s founding shareholders, who has moved there as president of ...
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Football Fans Spent Nearly €7 Billion On Club-related Merchandise In 2005
Football fans in the five largest countries in Europe – the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain – in these markets spent €6.9 billion on their favorite teams’ merchandise in 2005, according to Sport+Markt AG, which interviewed more than 3,000 football fans aged 15-69 for a new study. Fans ...
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Louis-dreyfus Is Heard In Om Case
Robert Louis-Dreyfus, former chief executive and major shareholder of Adidas, was among 14 people who appeared in the criminal court of Marseille last week in a trial relating to suspected fraud in the accounts of Olympique de Marseille (OM), the French football club owned by Louis-Dreyfus. The investigating magistrate claimed ...
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Eu Puts Duties On Shoes From China And Vietnam, Will Monitor Staf Compliance
In approving the compromise suggested by Trade Commissioner Peter Madelson, the European Commission has decided to institute a surveillance mechanism to make sure that importers will not circumvent the new provisional regulations by declaring certain casual or adult shoes as athletic or children’s footwear, which will be exempted. ...
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Gresvig Strives To Keep The Momentum
This big publicly trading Norwegian retailer is counting on its recent merger with a leading apparel retailing group, Voice Norge, to sustain its momentum and to generate higher returns. With a share of between 40 and 45 percent in a national sporting goods market that is estimated to have grown ...
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Xxl Wants To Double In Size
After a pause, this 5-year-old Norwegian chain of six sports superstores is planning to add six more units over the next two and a half years to reach more critical mass in a market dominated by Gresvig. The investment plan follows a year in which XXL posted its first operating ...
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Anton Sport Has Bought Sport 1
The Norwegian sporting goods retail market is going through major changes, besides the development of XXL. While ONS Invest, former owner of Voice, has become the controlling shareholder of Gresvig, one of the competing buying groups, Sport 1, has changed in terms of ownership, too, and another one, Sport 25, ...
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Good Start-up For Forum Sport, A New Low-cost Retail Concept In Denmark
A new Danish sporting goods retailer, Forum Sport, wants to be the Danish low-cost alternative to Intersport, Sport Masters or Sportigan, somewhat like Ryanair or Sterling, the Danish low-cost airline company. It started off in February with its own e-commerce website, forumsport.dk, and it opened its first free-standing store at ...
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Fenix Outdoor Makes A Jump In Profits
The Swedish outdoor group, which owns Fjällräven and many other brands, performed better than expected in the 4th quarter, thanks in part to continued progress at Hanwag and to a strong Christmas selling season at its own chain of outdoor stores, Naturkompaniet, which has achieved its turnaround in Sweden. The ...
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Ic Companys Buys The Distribution Of Peak Performance In Norway
IC Companys, the Danish group which owns Peak Performance, has agreed to pay 25 million Danish kroner (€3.4m-$4.1m) to take over the distribution of the Swedish sports apparel brand in Norway from its former exclusive importer, Adventure Sport & Leisure, with effect from next July 1. The business, which generated ...
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Exel Buys Pacific Composites
Exel Oy has become the world’s largest pultrusion company through the acquisition on Feb. 28 of Pacific Composites, reinforcing its industrial division and allowing the Finnish company to postpone indefinitely the construction of a production factory in Shenzen, China. In addition to its own China plant in Nanjing, Pacific Composites ...
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Makers Of Floorball Sticks Expand Into Clothing
Some of Sweden’s floorball equipment manufacturers are eyeing line extensions into apparel, since their sales of floorball sticks have begun to flatten in a market that has gone through a certain concentration. One of the most sweeping changes in the market over the last months was in fact the integration ...
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The Same Goes For Hockey
The two leading suppliers of hockey equipment in Sweden are rebranding their products after their acquisition by larger companies. Backed up by their respective new owners, Nike and Reebok, they are both seeking expansion into apparel as the market for hockey sticks and skates is flattening. Reebok and Jofa ...
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Tenson Is Zestfully Repositioned Under New Management
The Swedish outdoor brand has overhauled its product range as part of a marketing push that is meant to stem several years of decline. Placed under fresh management last year, Tenson is being repositioned as an outdoor brand with a fashionable and joyous edge, as illustrated by the tagline “zest ...
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Hummel Pushes Its Special Lifestyle Offerings Internationally
Known mainly for its team sports clothing for football and handball, Hummel International is now putting the accelerator on its sassy range of sports-inspired lifestyle clothing and footwear. Launched four years ago, Hummel’s branded sports fashion program has become an independent profit center within the company and it has come ...
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To Be Turns Snowmobile Clothing Into Fashion
To Be, a small Swedish company specialized in snowmobile clothing, is beginning to make inroads in the international market. The expansion comes as snowmobiling is catching on in Scandinavia as a sport, instead of just a means of transportation. The Swedish company was established five years ago by Tomas ...
