The first Swedish store of The Athlete’s Foot is due to open in late July on a surface of 60 square meters in Malmö, which lies across the bridge from Copenhagen. It will be operated by a new master franchisee for the country, and the partners in the deal are waiting to see the results before adding another store in 2008 and possibly five others by 2010.
The new master franchisees are Can and Cemo Incego, two brothers who have been in the women’s fashion and computer retailing for ten years. The contract was signed after TAF agreed to restrict the territory of its former Scandinavian master franchisee, Deres Design, to Denmark alone. Deres, which is also the Scandinavian licensee of Converse and has various chains of fashion stores in Denmark, operates only one TAF store in Copenhagen, in an excellent location.
TAF, which is looking for franchisees in Norway and Finland, among other countries, has struck meanwhile franchise agreements in Lebanon and Egypt as well. The two deals in the Middle East are for area development, featuring more than one store in each country.
Globally TAF had consolidated organic turnover growth of 7.0 percent in the 1st quarter of this year, with retail locations outside of the USA reporting a comparable store sales increase of 16.0 percent. TAF is a subsidiary of NexCen Brands, which reported revenues of $3,885,000 for the same period, with 56 percent of this coming from royalties including fees collected from TAF franchisees. NexCen reported a net loss of $198,000, up from $133,000 in the year-ago period.
Thanks to recent acquisition, the group is forecasting full-year revenues of $38-42 million and earnings of about $6.6 million, excluding the effect of possible new takeovers. NexCen has applied to issue new shares in connection to its acquisitions of TAF and, more recently, MaggieMoo’s, Bill Blass and the Waverly brand.
