The sports and leisure division of the New Wave group, which owns Craft, Cutter & Buck and several other brands, pushed its sales up by 20 percent to 465 million Swedish kronor (€52.4m-$69.2m) for the first quarter. This was chiefly due to acquisitions made last year, Ahead and Paris Glove, which added SEK 36.4 million (€4.1m-$5.4m) in sales. Excluding these buys, the division's turnover would have increased by 3 percent, with gains in Central Europe and North America but a sales decline in Sweden, where the mild winter affected re-orders. The unit's Ebitda declined by SEK 8.5 million (€1.0m-$1.3m) to SEK 27.9 million (€3.1m-$4.2m). This was also attributed to the companies acquired last years: They had a negative impact of SEK 8.4 million on New Wave's Ebitda, but this was described as seasonal. The Swedish company as a whole lifted its sales by 5 percent to SEK 975 million (€109.8m-$145.2m) but its operating profit crashed to SEK 2.7 million (€0.3m-$0.4m), down from SEK 17.7 million for the same quarter last year. New Wave's management declared itself relatively satisfied with this performance but admitted that it faced unpredictable market circumstances, not least in Europe.

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