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 served for Fischer for five years, first as sales manager for Japan and Scandinavia, then in the alpine racing business unit. The Nordic ski business unit continues to be led by Franz Föttinger.

For the financial year ending next Feb. 29, Fischer is budgeting revenues of €102 million in the alpine ski segment, up by 13.3 percent from €85.9 million for the 2004/05 financial year and €97.4 million for 2005/06, making it the world’s third-largest supplier in the sector. The increase was attributed completely to the Fischer brand. Double-digit sales increases were recorded last year during the bullish pre-order phase in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries, Eastern Europe, Russia and the USA. In addition to its growing line of ski boots, Fischer has delivered about 800,000 pairs of alpine skis in the year that is almost finished.

The outlook for the next financial year is not so good, mainly because of the lack of snow. In the OEM sector Fischer will continue to deliver skis to Scott, Kneissl and Nordica and says it will work intensely with Rossignol in the next few months to develop new products. Orders taken at the SIA show in Las Vegas indicate that Fischer will continue to win more market share in North America

Sales of cross-country ski products are expected to total €62 million for the Austrian company during the 12-month period ending this month, up from €43.5 million in 2004/05 and €57 million in 2005/06. Strong pre-orders in Germany, Austria and Switzerland contributed to a sales increase of 6 percent for the period ended last Dec. 31. The total volume will lie around one million pairs like before.

The management says it has found a new strategic partner in Rossignol as a client for its cross-country skis, but admits that Fischer’s OEM business in the Nordic ski sector will suffer from the loss of its contract with Salomon, which is being picked up by Atomic. Fischer remains optimistic in the medium term about the consequences of its shift from Salomon’s SNS binding system to Rottefella’s NNN system, but in the short term it will probably be affected sharply from the poor snow situation of this past winter. At the ISPO show last week, Rottefella said it felt that the NNN system has already beaten SNS on a global basis.

While Fischer’s management had budgeted a turnover of €207 million for the year ending next Feb. 29, it will still mark a small sales increase to €200 million, up from €185 million in the previous year. This does not include the turnover of a sister company, Löffler, and of Fischer’s activities in the area of composite materials and components.

However the total volume of alpine and cross-country skis sold will remain largely unchanged at around 1.8 million pairs as compared to the previous year, when Fischer’s revenues grew by more than 25 percent. The volume was only 1,490,000 pairs in the 2004/05 financial year. Sales of tennis products grew marginally this past year to around €5 million.
As previously reported, Fischer expects that retailers’ pre-orders for the next Fall/Winter season will drop by 10-15 percent in the alpine ski sector and by as much as 30 percent in cross-country. To help compensate for this, Fischer is introducing the first lines of clothing, headwear and sports bags under its own brand for the next Fall/Winter season, concentrating on alpine and cross-country skiing. The project is run together with a sister company of Fischer, Löffler, whose lines are more leisure-oriented.

Löffler has annual sales of €25-30 million and is active also in the area of bikewear and summer sports clothing in general. The group began a major diversification already 25 years ago by setting up another company, FACC, that produces aerospace components by using the know-how obtained in the development of ski products. It now employs 1,140 people and generates annual sales of €180 million. Another newer sister company, FCT, supplies customers such as Porsche and Audi with automotive components.