Richard Litzel is stepping down for personal reasons as the chief executive of Masai Barefoot Technology after running the Swiss-based footwear company on a more or less incognito basis for one year. The former top executive of Reebok, Arena and Keen will now focus on the German-speaking markets out of his home near Munich.
Litzel will be succeeded for now by Ken Pucker, former chief operating officer of Timberland. Marc Estor is also joining MBT as vice president for sales and marketing. A former executive of Adidas, he comes from ECCO, where he was the global division manager for non-golf performance footwear.
MBT, which recently became the property of Warren Buffet's investment fund, has launched a patent infringement suit in the USA against Ryn, a Korean company that has been marketing a similar product. Meanwhile, Mephisto and at least two former distribution partners of MBT have joined FitFlop in launching new lines of footwear which, like MBT's, purport to help their wearers lose weight and improve their general physical condition.
One of them is Biodyn, which had been distributing MBT in Germany since the start. It has begun to produce the line in its own factory in Münchweiler, a small town near Pirmasens, at a daily rate of 100 pairs, which may be increased to 400 units per day. Another former executive related to MBT in the USA, Paul Swenson, is said to have launched a similar line of shoes in the U.S. market, called Align Footwear, but he could not be reached for comment.
For its part, FitFlop has enlisted some powerful distributors in various countries. Two of them, Megasport in Spain and Sport Trade in Italy, are also involved in the sporting goods retail sector, and they plan to sell the brand in some sporting goods stores as well as in the regular shoe shops. Megasport is responsible also for Portugal and Andorra. Sport Trade already has orders from more than 250 points of sale in Italy. Sales of 2.5 million pairs of FitFlop shoes are expected for this year around the world (more in Shoe Intelligence).
