Latest Headlines – Page 509
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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 ...
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Asics And New Balance Follow In Icebug’S Footsteps With Spiked Running Shoes
An entirely new segment is emerging in the running market, in the shape of spiked shoes that are intended to run on ice. It was pioneered by Icebug, a small Swedish company, but ASICS and New Balance are both entering the fray this year, lending more support to its unique ...
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The Pedometer Rush Lifts Silva’S Sales
More and more exercise walkers, Nordic walkers and runners want to measure their performance, and the growing use of pedometers for this purpose has led Silva, a Swedish company specializing in sports-related instruments, to enjoy heady growth. Sales of these devices started taking off five years ago and they now ...
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Exports Are The New Frontier For Denmark’S Active Sportswear Int. Group
Active Sportswear Int. is beginning to take the export business seriously now that its leadership on the Danish market for badminton and children’s activewear is consolidated, respectively under the Forza and Color Kids brands. The new objective is to push exports of these two lines up to 50 percent of ...
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Ivanhoe Has Sold Its Baltic Facilities
The sale of two factories in Lithuania and Estonia should enable Ivanhoe, a Swedish brand of golf and ski sweaters, to invest more forcefully in export markets. The company still makes about 80 percent of its sales in Sweden, but it has begun to expand elsewhere. Ivanhoe is one ...
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Garant Will Make A Major New Effort In The Sports Market
While waiting for the advent of a new investor, Garant Schuh + Mode has reshuffled its management, appointing a new finance director, Frank Schuffelen, and giving more responsibility to Richard Brekelmans, the successful manager of its Dutch offshoot, for international marketing and the international redeployment of various retail concepts including ...
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Growing Prince Reorganizes European Management And Distribution
Prince has reorganized its European management and the supply chain to optimize its presence in the tennis market and to improve deliveries after European sales increases of 18 percent overall and 35 percent in racquets in the course of 2005. The sales gains were largely due to the success of ...
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New Shareholder For Profitable Wintersteiger
The holding company of the Lange family, whose interests include a 50 percent stake in the Jungheinric Group, the world’s largest supplier of fork lifts, has acquired a 44.9 percent shareholding in Wintersteiger. The sellers are UBF Mittelstandsfinanzierung, an Austrian investment company controlled by Bank Austria that is cashing out ...
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Sympatex, Which May Change Hands, Launches Its Own Branded Lines
Morgan Stanley and Annex Capital, an investment company, have reportedly asked German anti-trust authorities for permission to take over Ploucquet, the German textile company that owns Sympatex and the European operations of Outlast. The report could not be confirmed, but Morgan Stanley already made a big move in this direction ...
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Völkl Makes A Pact With The Unions
Völkl has reached an agreement with the vocal German trade unions to reduce production costs at its ultra-modern ski factory in Straubing, enabling the company to retain some German manufacturing for nearly all of its ranges. Völkl had previously outsourced production for some of its cheaper junior skis to the ...
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Accounting Review Leads K2 Into A Big Loss
K2 reported a loss of $232.2 million in its 4th quarter ended Dec. 31, as compared to a profit of $13.5 million in the same period a year earlier. The severe loss was the result of a writedown of intangibles after a routine accounting assessment last November showed that K2’s ...
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Deckers Shifts European Distribution
Deckers Corporation has been tweaking lately the distribution scheme for its various brands in Europe and in the rest of the world. New distributors have been selected for UGG in Germany and France, for Teva in Panama and for Simple in Italy, Spain and Panama. Wave and Motion will handle ...
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Acushnet Does Well Outside Usa, Says It Won’T Be Sold
The addition of a new distribution center in Korea helped Acushnet, the golf division of Fortune Brands, to grow faster outside the USA than in its domestic market, and the recent installation of a similar facility in China should have a similar effect on its 2006 turnover. Acushnet posted ...
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Ashworth Does Well In Europe
Sales were strong in Europe for the company its 1st quarter ended Jan. 31, and drove revenues outside of the USA to an increase of 19.3 percent to $5.8 million. The Callaway and Ashworth brands both performed well in the continent, with headwear, women’s sweaters and men’s fashion collections showing ...
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Cutter & Buck Names New Management, Licenses Out Some Foreign Sales
Cutter & Buck reported strong results for its 3rd quarter ended Jan. 31, 2006 across all channels, but its sales outside of the USA fell by 12.1 percent to $754,000 as the company continued a process of shifting some of its foreign business from distributors to licensees. The company’s ...
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Easton Appoints New Eurochief
Easton Sports Canada, which is responsible for sales of Easton products outside the USA, has promoted Scott Corbett and Luc Leboeuf to new positions to manage the Canadian and European markets for the company. Corbett becomes European hockey sales and brand manager, replacing in effect Leboeuf. The latter will occupy ...
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Positive Echoes From Ispo Russia
The organizers report a total of 6,823 visitors over the four-day period of the fair, a marked improvement from just over 4,000 one year ago, when it was still called In-Sports, but below the attendance of last September, which was marked by the cancellation of the MISS fair. The collaboration ...
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Foot Locker Remains Weak In Europe
Foot Locker struggled in Europe in 2005 and expects 2006 to be difficult as well. The retailer will continue this year to reduce its inventory in Europe. Foot Locker’s management does not expect margins in the continent to ever be as large as they were a few years ago, but ...
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Ashley Adds Hargreaves To His Stables
Mike Ashley, the maverick owner of Sports World International, continues his raid on the British sports retail business with the acquisition of Hargreaves Sports, a middle-sized family-owned retailer. The proposed deal has not been publicly announced, but it was unveiled to Hargreaves’ staff at its head offices in Portsmouth last ...
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Reebok Will Drag Down Adidas’ Results
Adidas managers must have gulped hard as they discovered a much sharper than expected downturn in Reebok sales and orders over the last months. However, the German company is confident that Reebok’s integration into the German group will yield visible improvements from the second half of this year. Reebok’s ...
