Ulf Bjerknes, a 49-year-old manager who has done wonderful things as chief executive of Rottefella in the last four years, is going to replace the departing Randy Setershagen as chief executive of another Norwegian company, Swix, before the end of June.
Described as the world’s leading supplier of ski wax and ski poles, Swix has had to endure two very difficult winter seasons because of poor snow conditions. It has been losing money for some time, but Jo Lunder, chairman and president of its parent company, Ferd Industrial Holdings, says it is committed to it for the long term.
To help diversify its business, Swix began to develop a line of clothing a few years ago and acquired two other brands, Bavac and Ulvang. Without excluding further acquisitions, an idea that will be explored by the new management will be a possible diversification into less winter-dependent sectors such as training and running under these brands.
Together with its other brands, Swix made a turnover of about €55 million in 2006. Sales declined in 2007 due to the lack of snow, although the month of December was relatively good. The company continued to lose money, but less than before, thanks in part to the transfer of a large part of its production of poles to Estonia. The company now has a staff of about 170 people and no other reductions are planned in the workforce.
As for Rottefella, a separately owned company, it was profitable last year, and its sales were more or less stable in spite of the snow conditions. One main reason was the growing success of its NNN system for cross-country ski bindings. Its adoption by Fischer has been successful. Rottefella, which is now claiming a market share of more than 60 percent in the Nordic ski business, reached a record production level of more than one million pairs of bindings in 2007.
Rottefella will introduce some interesting new products at the ISPO show next month. Bjerknes will be leaving the company after launching 13 new models of ski bindings and after setting up a new management made up of young people, covering key functions such as product development and marketing. Rottefella has also just now inaugurated a brand-new highly automated factory for plastic components at Hurum.
