Latest Headlines – Page 460
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Ashley Buys Original Shoe Company
Mike Ashley, the secretive and acquisitive owner of Sports World, took over the Original Shoe Company at an undisclosed price earlier this month. The acquisition of this British young fashion shoe chain marks an unprecedented foray by the hungry British entrepreneur into general footwear and fashion retailing, which is likely ...
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Stag Expands
STAG, the UK-based buying group whose name stands for the Sports Traders Alliance Group, will add an outdoor division, an equine division and a shoe division to help negotiate special conditions with brands that specialize in these product sectors. Some existing retail members already fall within one of the three ...
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Cricket Brand Turns Attention To Golf
Woodworm, a UK-based cricket brand that has made a huge impact on the market since its launch four years ago, is moving into the golf sector with a range of apparel endorsed by the world’s #5 player, Ernie Els. With Ernie Els, who has signed a 5-year contract with the ...
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Oakley Is Ready For Turnaround In Europe As It Becomes The Second Largest Eyewear Retailer In The Usa
While improving and expanding its brand development efforts and seeking more efficient operations, Oakley is implementing new initiatives as it restructures its footwear and apparel businesses, making them more technical, while refocusing on its core business in sunglasses and optics in general. As previously reported, Oakley’s restructuring plan for ...
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The Global Branded Sports Shoe Market Was Up By 9.9% In 2005
The major sports brands increased their footwear sales by 9.9 percent in 2005 to a total of $24,155 million, with Europe recording the biggest growth at 10.2 percent, helped by the boom going on in Russia and other emerging markets. Sales rose by 7.8 percent in the U.S. market, or ...
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World Cup Brings 30% Growth For Intersport’S Sales Of Football Products
Just as the FIFA World Cup got underway last week, the Intersport Group made a forecast that its retail sales of football products will grow by at least 30 percent to a level of more than €700 million in 2006, based on the estimated retail sales achieved over the last ...
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Finland’S Sportia Changes Hands And Management
Sportia is the Finnish partner of Sport 2000 International and it had a retail turnover of €44 million before VAT last year. With revenues of only about €26 million last year and a network of just about 50 affiliated stores, it was small fry for its previous owner, Wihuri Oy, ...
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K2 Buys Karhu And Line In North America
The acquisition of Karhu’s North American cross-country ski business, which was spinned off by the Finnish sports company by the same name in the ‘nineties, complements nicely what K2 did a while ago by taking over Madshus, the Norwegian Nordic ski specialist. In practice, K2 has bought the North ...
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LOTTO IMPROVES MARGINS AND HOPES TO IMPROVE SALES Lotto...
LOTTO IMPROVES MARGINS AND HOPES TO IMPROVE SALES Lotto Sport Italia managed to improve its profitability in 2005, raising its net income to €3.0 million from €0.4 million in the previous year, in spite of relatively stable revenues of €144.1 million. Adding up sales under license, the brand’s global ...
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Mizuno Sells Many Football And Running Shoes In Europe
Mizuno is making a certain statement in several European markets with its football and running shoes, offering good technology at a relatively reasonable price. Its footwear sales in Europe have been growing at an annual rate of about 25 percent over the last few years. Combined with sports bags and ...
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Puma Appoints New Managers For France And The Uk
Tony Ward, former head of footwear at Foot Locker Europe, has just started as general manager of Puma UK, and in France the new country manager is Claude D. Cohen, a former executive of the LVMH luxury goods group. Both report to Miguel Andrade, who became last January general manager ...
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Krug Becomes Stride Rite’S Eurochief
Stride Rite Corporation has appointed Stephen Krug as general manager of Europe, where he will oversee all the company’s brands including Saucony, the athletic footwear brand it acquired last November. His main task will be to stimulate higher revenues for all the brands of the group in this part of ...
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The Three Stripes Win A Set
Adidas has been allowed to leave its Three Stripes on the garments of endorsing tennis professionals at the Wimbledon tournaments starting June 26, and it should be able to do the same at the U.S. Tennis Open in August, following a decision by Britain’s High Court. A senior judge in ...
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Head Launches Women’S Racquets
While introducing yet another new weight-saving technology for its tennis racquets, called Metallix, Head is launching the first women-specific range, called Airflow. Developed in collaboration with Steffi Graf, the former champion who has a new long-term endorsement contract with the brand, the Airflow line is being shipped from next month ...
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Babolat Challenges The Leaders
Babolat continues to record single-digit sales increases in its initial core business of tennis strings, while its all-out diversification into tennis racquets, balls, shoes and clothing is supporting the brand’s image and sustaining a continuous double-digit improvement in total revenues. Racquets have come to represent 50 percent of the French ...
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Rossi Helps Quik’S Top Line, Not Its Bottom Line
Quiksilver is on plan or slightly ahead of plan with the integration of the Rossignol Group, but its net income was off by 89 percent to $3,729,000 during the 2nd quarter ended Apr. 30 on 21 percent higher total revenues of $516,928,000, largely because of charges of $3.7 million related ...
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Oxbow Helps Improve Lafuma’S Results
The management of the French outdoor group, which acquired Oxbow last year, is fairly confident of raising the French surf brand’s operating margin (EBIT) from 9 to 12 percent this year, while boosting its revenues by between 5 and 7 percent, after three years of quasi-stagnation. The longterm potential is ...
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Rip Curl Looks For New Avenues Of Growth In Europe
Rip Curl is taking some important product initiatives while going through some management changes in its European operations. Denis Holtzwarth, a former Procter & Gamble executive who worked recently for Reebok and Oxbow, has been appointed as the new commercial director of Rip Curl Europe, replacing Stéphane Weinhold who recently ...
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Animal Opens More Stores Everywhere
Animal, the British action sports brand, is multiplying store openings in the UK and in several other European countries, while expanding its wholesale business through the launch of a secondary brand, Elements, described as a transition range. Elements has just been launched in Animal’s own stores and it should be ...
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Extreme Group Fires On All Cylinders
The UK-based extreme sports group of Al Gosling is bursting with new initiatives at home and abroad, banking on its growing reputation in the action sports sector. It has recently signed a flurry of international licensing deals to sell action sports clothing, footwear and accessories under the Extreme brand, and ...
