Latest News & Analysis – Page 264
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Lafuma puts down its rifle while talking to E-Land
The Lafuma Group has been putting out some important information about its future lately. As reported in the last issue, Lafuma has opened up discussions with E-Land on a potential takeover of the French group by that large South Korean conglomerate. According to the French press, E-Land indicated that it ...
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Black Diamond goes big in Japan, adds an Austrian brand
+ Black Diamond Inc. has agreed to buy Pieps, an Austrian brand of alpine safety equipment, at a price of €8.0 million in cash. The deal also calls for the American company to assume debts worth €2.1 million, and to make extra payments of up to €2.3 million if Pieps ...
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Transa sets a retail momentum in the heart of Zurich
In late September, Transa, the big Swiss specialty outdoor retailer, opened its largest store in the country by far, just a few meters away from the central railway station of the country's biggest city, with which it is directly connected. The shop has a selling surface of around 3,000 square ...
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Jack Wolfskin seeks out opportunities abroad
Having reached a dominant position in the German-speaking market, which still represents about 80 percent of its revenues, Jack Wolfskin is trying to make a dent in two other important neighboring markets – France and the U.K. – while considering structural changes in big emerging markets such as Russia and ...
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VF sets new targets for its business in Asia
VF Corporation, the U.S.-based owner of The North Face, Eastpak, Jansport, Vans, Timberland and many other brands, told investors at a meeting in Shanghai that it was eyeing sales of $2 billion in the Asia-Pacific region over the next five years, compared with about $900 million this year. This ...
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Nordic study finds openings in buoyant markets
The outdoor market in the Nordic European countries jointly yielded retail sales of about €1.4 billion last year, amounting to about twice the level of spending per capita attained in the German market, it emerged from the Nordic outdoor study compiled by EDM Publications, the publisher of The Compass. The ...
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Wolverine completes PLG’s acquisition
Wolverine Worldwide announced last week the slightly belated completion of its $1.24 billion acquisition of the Performance + Lifestyle Group of Collective Brands, which includes big shoe brands such as Saucony, Sperry Top-Sider, Keds and Stride Rite. For the parent company of Merrell, Sebago and other footwear brands, it is ...
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American toesock brand wants to be more international
Injinji is running as fast as Vibram's FiveFingers, and perhaps even faster now, as more and more trail runners and hikers are adopting the toe separation concept of its line of sports socks. Based in San Diego, this company went into ultra-running before FiveFingers, but the success of Vibram's shoes ...
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OR may stay where it is if the locals make an effort
Like the next Outdoor Retailer Winter Market, the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market will run from Wednesday to Saturday rather than from Thursday to Sunday to let the participants enjoy part of the weekend. While the Winter Market will run from Jan. 23 to Jan. 26, the Summer Market will start ...
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First graduate course in sporting goods management kicks off
Born as an initiative by the Outdoor Sports Valley (OSV), an interesting new Master of Science course in sports and outdoor industry management, or SOIM for short, began a few days ago at the School of Management of Lyon (EMLyon). Described as the first such master's degree program specializing in ...
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Deadly accident forces climbing industry to recall and rethink
In an unprecedented case, a couple of brands of climbing material have volunteered to recall a vast number of their via ferrata sets. This came in the aftermath of a deadly accident with one casualty in Austria in August. According to information from the alpine clubs, it has never happened ...
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Lafuma comments on potential takeover bid from Korea
Reacting to press reports of the Lafuma Group's potential acquisition by a South Korean conglomerate, E-Land, the French outdoor and action sports group confirmed that it had been approached by the company and that discussions had been opened. However, Lafuma hastened to add that the talks were very preliminary, and ...
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JD stabilizes Blacks
The JD Sports Fashion group saw its operating profit before one-off costs shrink to £3.2 million (€3.9m-$5.2m) for the 26 weeks until 28 July, down from £16.2 million (€20.1m-$26.3m) for the same weeks in 2011, chiefly due to the disruption caused by acquisitions. The British sports fashion retailer bought Blacks ...
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Joint industry action against doubtful testing methods
It is not news that brands are unhappy with the German Stiftung Warentest (“foundation product testing”), which has a powerful voice among German consumers. Warentest does not specialize in certain product categories, but tests any type of consumer goods and financial services. The results are published in the foundation's magazine ...
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The new generation steps up at Ivanhoe
The second-generation owners of Ivanhoe, a Swedish brand of outdoor and golf apparel, have started to transfer responsibilities and ownership to the third generation of the Göthager family. Anna and Anders Göthager became the majority shareholders of Ivanhoe Support AB, a new entity that will deal with marketing, sales and ...
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Bever founder buys distribution company
Fred van Olphen, the founder and former owner of Bever Zwerfsport, the leading Dutch outdoor retailer, has acquired Robijns, a distribution company specializing in technical outdoor products. The company was previously owned by Marco Robijns and his spouse, Paulien Verhoeven, who have been running the business for more than two ...
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Rich program for the European Outdoor Forum
The Outdoor Sports Valley (OSV), which is organizing the European Outdoor Forum (EOF) for the third time in the nice French town of Annecy on Oct. 16-17, has put its program online, pointing out that the delegates who want to attend will get an “early bird” discount if they book ...
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EOG launches a rotating European Outdoor Summit
After lending its support to the annual European Outdoor Forum (EOF) since its start in 2010, the European Outdoor Group has decided to launch a similar initiative from 2013 on, working with national associations to host it in a different European country during the month of October each year. It ...
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China between endless growth and western-style normalcy
The hard facts put out by market researchers on the outdoor business in China (as published in the Compass' last issue) suggest a strong increase of nearly 60 percent last year, but indicated that the market is slowing down massively in 2012. “Slowing down” in Mandarin terms means a growth ...
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The Korean market may cool down, too
The South Korean outdoor market, which has become the second-largest in the world after the U.S., is apparently showing some signs of saturation. Like other mature markets, it has been hit by the warm spell of the last winter season, although the country's economy, which is less export-oriented than the ...
