News Briefs – Page 246
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News briefs
S&P upgrades Under Armour’s outlook
The outlook for Under Armour has been changed by Standard & Poor’s from negative to stable based on the company’s improved financial metrics, while its issuer credit rating has been kept at BB. S&P expects UA’s debt/Ebitda ratio to decline from 2.7 times in 2020 to below 2.0 times by ...
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News briefs
Amazon issues a maiden $1bn green bond
Amazon raised $1 billion with the issuance of its first sustainability bond on May 10. The company says the proceeds will be used to invest in renewable energy, clean transport, sustainable buildings, affordable housing, and socioeconomic advancement and empowerment. The U.S.-based e-commerce giant has pledged to be carbon-free, on a ...
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News briefs
Cole Haan launches its first tennis shoe
Cole Haan is releasing the Zerogrand Winner, its first sneaker designed specifically for the game of tennis. It is the third sport performance offering for the American lifestyle brand, which previously belonged to the Nike group. Cole Haan stepped into performance last year with a runnning shoe, followed by its ...
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News briefs
Macron partners with Go-all to promote sport in early childhood in Italy
Macron has announced a new partnership with Go-all Asilo del Calcio to encourage sports activities in early childhood. Go-all Asilo del Calcio is an Italian network of franchised “Baby Soccer Schools,” as the organization defines them on its Facebook page, for children aged 2-5. Macron will support the development of ...
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News briefs
JD buys a small meanswear retailer
JD Sports Fashion has acquired Oi Polloi, an upscale casual menswear store in Manchester, and its online shop. Founded in 2002, the retailer offers clothing under its own label as well as brands such as Adidas, Reebok, Converse, Keen, Patagonia, Barbour, Ralph Lauren, Superga, Levi’s, Stone Island and Armor Lux. ...
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News briefs
No change planned in JD’s top management
In response to our inquiry, a spokesman for JD Sports Fashion denied a report in The Sunday Times that Peter Cowgill, the company’s dynamic executive chairman and CEO, was planning to step down from its day-to-day functions, hiring a CEO to help manage the group’s growing range of operations. He ...
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News briefs
StockX opens an authentication center in Australia
StockX, the American online marketplace for sneakers, opened on May 5 an authentication center in Melbourne. It is the company’s first center covering Australia and New Zealand. StockX currently has 11 authentication centers and drop-off locations in addition to its offices in Detroit, London and Tokyo. Australians have been able ...
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News briefs
Sports Direct voted “worst” sports shop in Britain by customers
Sports Direct has been ranked as the U.K.’s worst sports shop, according to a survey conducted by a consumer specialist agency, Which? The poll asked 10,909 members of Which? and the general public in November about their most recent experiences of purchasing outdoor and sporting equipment at 29 of Britain’s ...
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News briefs
Influential German retail manager passes away
Hugo Laumann, a German manager dedicated to the promotion of traditional small and medium-sized independent sporting goods retailers, passed away on April 30 at the age of 92. As its general manager, he helped build up the German sporting goods retailers’ association, VDS, into an organization whose strong voice was ...
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News briefs
Vans co-founder passes away
Paul Van Doren, a co-founder of Vans, has passed away on May 6 at the age of 90, shortly after the publication of his biography, titled “Authentic.” He started as a service boy at a rubber factory at the age of 16. He acquired his independence in 1966 when he ...
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News briefsBike boom pushes Q1 sales at Dorel
Dorel Industries said revenues at its sports segment increased for the eighth consecutive quarter in the three months ended March 31, rising by 43.6 percent in reported U.S. dollars to $270 million, and by 41.5 percent in local currencies, driven by the growing global demand for bikes. The second quarter ...
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News briefs
VF is splitting up Icebreaker
Four years after acquiring the brand of merino-wool apparel based in New Zealand, VF Corp. has decided that it will be splitting Icebreaker into three entities, according to reports in the NZ Herald. Two of these entities will be operating out of the present headquarters, in the city of Ponsonby, ...
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News briefs
Salomon unveils details of its restructuring plan
Salomon’s management presented details of its restructuring plan to the company’s Social and Economic Committee (CSE) on May 3. The plan envisages cutting 82 jobs out of 738 at the company’s head office in Annecy, in France’s southeast. The cuts are mostly due to the closing of ski resorts in ...
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News briefs
Superdry resumes revenue growth
Superdry saw revenues inch up by 0.8 percent to £118.4 million (€136.2m-$164.2m) in the fourth quarter ended April 24, after being severely hit by Covid-19 pandemic restrictions and lockdowns earlier in the financial year. “The early signs following the reopening of our UK stores are encouraging, as lockdown restrictions start ...
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News briefs
Timex to produce watches for Adidas Originals
Thanks to a new worldwide licensing deal, the Timex Group will be designing, manufacturing and distributing watches under the Adidas Originals brand name. The first collection is scheduled for release early next year through Adidas’ own stores, franchises and e-commerce as well as through the Timex Group’s sales network. Tobias ...
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News briefs
SRAM rewards shareholders after a strong year
SRAM, the private maker of bicycle components, plans to issue a $1.1 billion term loan to finance a special distribution of $750 million to its shareholders, after a banner year in which its sales jumped to $974 million, thanks to the recent bike boom. The rest of the proceeds will ...
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News briefs
Irish singer invests in Gym+Coffee
A young Irish singer, Niall Horan, has joined Gym+Coffee, an Irish brand of athleisure clothing and accessories for women and men, as an investor, ambassador and adviser. Gym+Coffee was founded by three friends in 2017. The company has six “Clubhouse” stores in the Republic of Ireland and two in the ...
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News briefs
Andy Long replaces Andy Rubin on JD’s board
JD Sports Fashion has announced the departure of Andy Rubin, chairman of Pentland Brands, as a non-executive director of the retailer, which is controlled by the Pentland Group with a stake of 51.9 percent. He was replaced on May 6 by Andy Long, an executive director of Pentland Group that ...
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News briefs
Norway’s sports chains grew by 25% in Q1
The Norwegian sporting goods market as already gone up by 7 percent, as previously reported. Cold weather, abundant snow and restrictions on foreign travel helped the major Norwegian sporting goods retail chains to book a sales increase of almost 25 percent to 3.3 billion Norwegian kroner (€1.3bn-$1.6bn) in the first ...
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News briefs
New HR director for Lacoste’s parent
MF Brands, the holding company of Lacoste, Tecnifibre, Aigle, Gant and The Kooples, has hired Gaelle Petit-Perrin as director of human resources, starting on May 10. After spending more than eight years inside the Rocher beauty and fashion group, where she ran its digital marketing operations, she joined Russel Reynolds ...
