Latest Headlines – Page 446
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Columbia Reports Good Growth
Columbia Sportswear saw its sales increase by 8.1 percent in Europe to $199.2 million in 2006, with a 7.7 percent increase in local currencies. The biggest growth took place in Italy, where orders are also up sharply for 2007, and in Scandinavian countries generally. Denmark, where Columbia switched from a ...
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Head Bucks The Trend In Snow Sports
In an unusual announcement ahead of its financial report for 2006, which is due at the end of February, Head confirms the strong progress of its winter sports division already outlined in connection with its results for the first nine months of last year, in spite of a difficult market ...
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Vf Again Shuffles The Deck In Europe
The departure of Martin Berendsen, who formerly headed up VF Corporation’s action sports brands outside the USA, has triggered the establishment of a new organizational structure for the international operations of its “outdoor and sportswear coalition,”, which are still headed up by Karl Heinz Salzburger out of Lugano, Switzerland. Under ...
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Chervo Moves Into Retail And Brand Management
Chervò, an Italian leader in golf apparel that is going to show in the IspoVision section of the ISPO fair at the end of this week,, is going through an interesting phase of vertical integration after six years of intense growth. It has taken on the management of seven pro ...
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Awards At Ispo
Among many old and new award ceremonies, ISPO will give its traditional ISPO Cup this time to Dr. Vitali Klitschko, the retired boxer and sports science doctor from the Ukraine. The award recognizes outstanding sporting achievements by sports personalities that can serve as a role model for younger people. Klitschko, ...
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French consumers are getting more responsive to price promotions on...
French consumers are getting more responsive to price promotions on sports footwear throughout the year. According NPD’s regular quarterly surveys of the market, discounted sports shoes represented 43 percent of French retailers’ sales in the 12-month period ended in June 2006, as compared to nearly 36 percent five years earlier.
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Boards & More, the Austrian-based boardsports bought by Airesis in...
Boards & More, the Austrian-based boardsports bought by Airesis in 2003, is thought to be wrapping a deal for the sale of its F2 surfing brand. The intended buyer is Reinhard Hofbauer, former owner of Flow, the snowboarding brand of Neilpryde. F2 has been in competition with other brands of ...
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Le Coq Sportif, the French sports brand that was recently...
Le Coq Sportif, the French sports brand that was recently acquired by Airesis, the Swiss-based investment company, has bought back the rights to its brand name in the USA from Itochu. The Japanese company had obtained the U.S. rights in 2005 and struck a management deal with Jon Epstein, former ...
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Jan Valdmaa has decided to leave as president and chief...
Jan Valdmaa has decided to leave as president and chief executive of Helly Hansen, following its now completed takeover by Altor Equity Partners. However, he has agreed to stay on until up to May 31, pending the appointment of a successor. Helly Hansen’s former controlling shareholder, Investcorp, brought in the ...
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Nike has promoted Clare Hamil to be president and chief...
Nike has promoted Clare Hamil to be president and chief executive of Exeter, its New York-based subsidiary for the mass market. Hamil has 25 years’ experience at the Swoosh and has been vice-president and general manager of global footwear and vice-president of new business development. She replaces Lisa Kempa, a ...
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Robert Appelt, a long-time veteran connected with the Silvretta brand...
Robert Appelt, a long-time veteran connected with the Silvretta brand of ski bindings, most recently in charge of sales, has left the Salewa group. Appelt’s functions have been split between a sales manager for Germany, Thomas Gröger, who is in charge of the hardware products of the Salewa group in ...
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Lafuma boasts a 21 percent increase in its order backlog,...
Lafuma boasts a 21 percent increase in its order backlog, compared with one year ago, but cautions investors that the atypical winter 2007 season may affect the final revenue flow. For the 1st quarter ended last Dec. 31, the French outdoor group reports a 2.4 percent sales increase to €47.7 ...
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Markus Zaversnik, an Austrian executive who left as sales director...
Markus Zaversnik, an Austrian executive who left as sales director of SIGG Switzerland at the end of 2005, has set up an international consultancy, and its first client in the sporting goods sector is X-Action, a 2-year-old Austrian brand of functional socks and underwear for ski, hiking, trekking, running and ...
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Dobotex, the successful European licensee of Puma for socks, recently...
Dobotex, the successful European licensee of Puma for socks, recently signed a 5-year European license with Tommy Hilfiger, starting next August. The Dutch company, founded in 1979, sells about 70 million pairs of socks annually. Its revenues grew last year to nearly €70 million, with Puma representing the majority of ...
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Andrew Peters, 53, will become the new chief executive of...
Andrew Peters, 53, will become the new chief executive of ISM, the 21-year-old British executive recruitment agency, from March 1. He comes from Puma, where he has served as UK managing director for 15 years. He previously worked as senior product manager with Slazenger and as buying and merchandise director ...
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Climate Change Is A Real Challenge
Many European sporting goods retailers are sighing in relief as the snow finally started to come down in parts of Scandinavia and of the alpine region in the last few days, after one of the warmest seasons in centuries. They may yet be able to pay their invoices and avoid ...
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Fila Korea Buys Fila Worldwide
The worldwide rights to Fila Sports’ brand name and its global operations will become the property of Gene Yoon, who ran for many years the highly successful Fila Korea subsidiary and then bought it in 2005 from Sport Brands International. The price of the transaction has not been disclosed ...
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Profit Warnings Are Positive For Jd And Jjb, And Negative For Blacks
A year ago Blacks Leisure and the John David Group were doing better than JJB Sports in the tough British sporting goods market. However Blacks, the British outdoor and action sports retailer, started the year with yet another profit warning as it appeared that its sales over the Christmas period ...
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Adidas Moves Patrik Nilsson To America, And David Singleton Quits Reebok
Patrik Nilsson, who did a splendid job in raising Adidas’ market share in the Scandinavian markets since he became managing director of Area Nordic in November 2003 (see also Northern European market research report), will move to Portland to take charge of Adidas America. Reporting directly to Erich Stamminger, president ...
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Beckham Will Help Popularize Soccer In America
David Beckham, the charismatic pitchman of Adidas, is leaving Real Madrid when his contract expires on June 30 to play for an American team that belongs to Major League Soccer (MLS), also sponsored by the Big a. The 31-year old English midfielder, husband of Posh Spice, has signed a major ...
