Latest News & Analysis – Page 269
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Vibram responds to charges on barefoot running
Vibram has been accused of making “deceptive” statements about the benefits of barefoot running with its FiveFingers shoes by a group of five American law firms that purport to be representing more than 100 individuals with claims of more than $5 million. Their lawsuit, filed in federal court in Massachusetts ...
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OutDoor show invites bids for 2012 industry awards
The floor is open for the Outdoor Industry Award 2012, which will be again organized by iF International Forum Design in cooperation with Messe Friedrichshafen, the host of the OutDoor show. Applications for the best gear of the year can be turned in until June 7.Manufacturers and designers are invited ...
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Time has come for Sportler to click for the mountains
Sportler, the big Italian outdoor and sporting goods retailer, is making investments to become stronger in internet retailing. The chain just acquired Bergzeit (“time for the mountains”), a German online retailer with its banner bergzeit.de plus two brick-and-mortar stores in southern Germany. Georg Oberrauch, Sportler's owner and chief executive, told ...
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Udberg quits Lowe Alpine
David Udberg has made public his resignation as chief executive of Lowe Alpine UK, leaving the company that was formally acquired by Equip Outdoor Technologies last October. He made that decision last December, but he agreed to wait until after the Ispo show to make the announcement, which came as ...
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Asolo gets out of receivership
The creditors of Asolo have approved a settlement of the company's debts, proposed by the court of Treviso, allowing the highly secretive Italian company to get out of bankruptcy protection proceedings without liquidating any of its remaining assets.The settlement, which was approved on March 15, calls for the repayment of ...
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Italy’s Assosport creates an outdoor section
Assosport, the Italian sporting goods industry association, has announced the establishment of a dedicated business unit for the outdoor industry. One of the goals is to help Italian companies to develop their export activities, to coordinate sector-specific actions and to promote participation in outdoor sports through a series of programs, ...
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Under currency pressure, Mammut’s trunk grows shorter
The Conzzeta Group reported today that its sporting goods subsidiary, which revolves around the Mammut Sports Group, lost some turnover in its last financial and calendar year, in comparison with 2010.Segment sales went down by 4.7 percent to 210.8 million Swiss francs (€174.8m-$233.6m). Conzzeta says, however, that Mammut would ...
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Columbia axes jobs due to a modest forecast
Columbia Sportswear is about to lay off 80 employees from its global staff, representing 2 percent of its total workforce. The cuts concern mainly the headquarters in the U.S. and the European subsidiary. Officials at the latter operation, which is based in Geneva, declined to comment, but the headquarters in ...
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Jack Wolfskin picks a seasoned Adidas man as its new chief
Jack Wolfskin has announced that Michael Rupp will be its new chief executive effective July 1. The 51-year-old has served the Adidas Group in various positions and has been in the industry for more than two decades. Most recently, he has acted as president and CEO of Adidas' Boston-based subsidiary, ...
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Haglöfs goes direct in Benelux
Haglöfs, the Swedish outdoor brand, has decided to open a sales subsidiary for the Benelux markets in the coming weeks. These markets were previously handled by agents but a few months ago Haglöfs started weighing other alternatives after its longtime Dutch partner, Snowgoose, suspended its activities.The Benelux unit will be ...
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Camelbak grows, appoints new distributors
The leading California-based supplier of hydration gear, which continued to grow at a double-digit rate last year in the U.S. as well as the rest of the world, has hired new distributors around the world. In Greece, the only new hire is Niko Maniatopoulos. Like Hartje, the German distributor hired ...
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Bestard gets a Chinese award
The Spanish shoe manufacturer was happy to publicize the fact that two members of its Chinese mountaineering team had won this year's “Golden Rhino Award” at last month's Ispo Beijing show for their recent exploits in the Daxue Shan range in Sichuan province. Bestard pointed out that it ...
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Despite the crisis around the globe, China is growing bigger
Ispo Beijing, the successful trade show organized by Messe München in the Chinese capital, gave no evidence that the domestic outdoor industry might be shocked or irritated by the flat performance of the market in North America and Europe. Instead, both domestic players and foreign brands believe that the growth ...
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Globetrotter grows, but suffers from tough online competition
Globetrotter Ausrüstung, Germany's leading specialty outdoor retailer, managed to increase its total sales by 10 percent to €250 million in its 2011-12 fiscal year, ended Feb. 29. These figures look better than they actually are, since Andreas Bartmann, managing partner, admitted that the company was behind its own expectations.One reason ...
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Brands are up and retail down at Fenix Outdoor
Fenix Outdoor has published its annual results. The Swedish corporation owns a number of high profile Scandinavian brands such as Fjällräven, Tierra, Primus, Hanwag and Brunton, as well as two retail chains - Naturkompaniet and, since last year, the Partioaitta chain in Finland. Fenix Outdoor ended 2011 with a total ...
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VF is ready for further acquisitions
VF Corporation said that it has the financial and managerial resources to carry out further acquisitions, but warned that it is unlikely to achieve a deal the size of Timberland over the next 12 months. VF bought the brand in June 2011 for about $2 billion.The comments come as the ...
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At the eve of its possible IPO, Sanfo presents promising figures
Sanfo, China's leading specialty outdoor retailer, managed to raise its total sales by 55 percent to well above $32.5 million in 2011, but its owner, Heng Zhang, feels that this kind of growth was natural in market like the Chinese one. He told this publication in Beijing that the outdoor ...
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Under new ownership, Jack Wolfskin sticks to a double-digit mood
Jack Wolfskin has again reported excellent results for its 2010-11 financial year, which ended last Sept. 30. Consolidated revenues grew by 22.5 percent to a record €355 million. Sales soared across all product categories with a hefty increase in footwear of 35 percent. Turnover increased over all distribution channels and ...
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OMM expands in Europe and China
OMM (“Original Mountain Marathon”), the British brand of outdoor apparel and equipment, is quickly expanding into the European continent and the Far East. In Europe, it has picked various agents for some of the key markets, including Fabian Geist for the Benelux countries, Oli Aram for Germany (currently only for ...
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Kozy Kidz hugs Chinese children
Another company that came to Ispo Beijing to show in the U.K. village and to present a distributor for the Chinese market was Kozy Kidz, the British specialty brand of outdoor apparel designed for children up to 8 years of age. Effective immediately, the Chinese market will be covered by ...
