All Article articles – Page 220
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Point6 moves output from China to the U.S.
Point6, the American company founded by former executives of SmartWool three years ago, has announced that it is moving all the production of its merino wool socks from China to the U.S., triggering positive reactions from U.S. retailers. SmartWool and some other American producers of socks make some or all ...
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Outdoor Research gears up for Phase 3
Dan Nordstrom, president and chief executive of Outdoor Research, has announced yet another reorganization of the management to help sustain the strong growth of this company in all the segments of its product range. He will act from now on as CEO, focusing on strategy and other matters. Alex Kutches, ...
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Bradshaw Taylor takes on Timbuk2 for Northern Europe
Bradshaw Taylor is a big distributor of foreign outdoor brands, based in the U.K., that already covers a large part of the European market. For example, it has a contract with Royal Robbins for all of Europe, and it distributes Icebreaker not only in the U.K. and Ireland, but also ...
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Prices are going up, more or less selectively
Cost increases have been experienced by practically every vendor of footwear and clothing products in the outdoor, athletic and casual markets over the past 12 months. More than 70 percent of them have decided to reflect the higher input costs in one way or another in the prices that they ...
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Shanghai was a success, Frankfurt says, but.....
The China Outdoor show that was held in Shanghai at the end of June was a success, according to its organizer, Messe Frankfurt. The official release says that slightly more than 6,000 professional buyers and outdoor enthusiasts attended the event held at Shanghai Exhibition Centre.They were welcomed by 103 brands ...
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Silva plans to expand under new owners
Silva, the Swedish brand of lights and compasses, is preparing to explore more openings in sports retailing and in international markets after its acquisition by Karnell, a Swedish investment company. Unveiled earlier this month, the sale of Silva by Fiskars should have a positive impact of about €6 million on ...
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Vibram takes over FiveFingers’ distribution in Europe
Vibram has amicably parted ways with Aicad, the Italian producer of Lizard sandals, by not renewing a contract that had given it the right to distribute its own line of FiveFingers shoes in Europe for the past five years. Aicad will have until the end of this year to clear ...
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Czech retailer plans foray into Poland
Hudy Sport, the leading outdoor retailer in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, is preparing to move into the Polish market with several store openings early next year. The first two stores should open in Poznan and Warsaw in March and April, based on the same concept and with the same ...
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Italy’s Rewoolution gets in on Merino craze
The skyrocketing trend toward apparel based on Merino wool remains unbroken and attracts more and more new brands. The latest specialty brand for this offer comes from Italy and is called Rewoolution. It was founded one year ago outside Biella by Successori Reda, owned by the Botto Poala family. The ...
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Vasque uses two distributors to cover much of Europe
This brand of Red Wing Shoes, which is introducing a new brightly colored line of outdoor shoes for spring/summer 2012, has signed up two distributors, one in Spain and the other one in Germany, to cover many different countries in southern, Central and Eastern Europe.While focusing on different product lines ...
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Coleman wants to get more into specialty retail in Europe
After the move of the headquarters for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) from Lyon to Frankfurt two and a half years ago, Coleman, along with its other brands Camping Gaz, Sevylor and Airbed, sees itself in a good position to strengthen its presence across the region for all ...
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Branded outdoor footwear is on fire
Our annual survey of the global branded rugged outdoor footwear market shows a strong increase of 12.8 percent in 2010 at the wholesale level in terms of U.S. dollars. Some of the growth was obviously the result of price increases and replenishment of inventories by retailers who had ordered little ...
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Blackstone takes over Jack Wolfskin; Manfred Hell steps down
Finally, Jack Wolfskin has changed ownership after a couple of months of negotiations with various bidders. As indicated before, Blackstone, the private equity firm, is taking over the “Paw.” The price being paid was not disclosed, but unconfirmed reports indicate that it might be around €700 million. In the previous ...
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Vibram attacks Fila over FiveFingers patents
Vibram USA and its parent company in Italy, Vibram SpA, filed a complaint last July 6 in a U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, alleging that the “Skele-Toes” range introduced by Fila USA last February infringes on three U.S. patents. The main patent, issued last Oct. 5, covers “footwear having independently ...
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Asics is working hard on synergies with Haglöfs
Everybody was surprised a year ago when Asics, the big Japanese vendor of athletic footwear, bought Haglöfs, the big Swedish player in outdoor gear. We took the opportunity to ask Alistair Cameron, Asics' European chief, how far he has come to bundle the two brands.According to Cameron, the two brands ...
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Amer pushes e-commerce, own retail
Amer Sports plans to increase sales from e-commerce and corporate single-brand stores to 10 percent of the group's net sales. The group has already started pilot e-commerce operations in France for Salomon and Suunto, and now plans to launch new online shops in other parts of Europe and North America. ...
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Friedrichshafen’s numbers are up again
It was probably one of Messe Friedrichshafen's targets to organize an OutDoor show that was better than the weather outside the halls. The makers managed to achieve this goal even though that was not difficult to do. During the show, the weather was horrible – except for Saturday which was ...
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VF is optimistic after a good quarter
VF Corporation, the owner of The North Face and many other outdoor, sports and fashion brands, has upgraded its guidance for sales and profits for the full year, after all of its units continued to blaze ahead in the second quarter and it managed to limit the impact of rising ...
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Major South African retailer goes public
Holdsport, a company formerly known as Moresport that runs 33 Sportmans Warehouse and 18 Outdoor Warehouse stores in South Africa, went public on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. The transaction gave the company a valuation of about 1.33 billion rand (€136.3m-$196.4m), resulting in a small capital gain for its major shareholder, ...
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Icebreaking news: Kiwis want to double in four years
Icebreaker, the New Zealand specialty apparel made from Merino wool, projects global sales at $150 million for the current year after it managed to reach $120 million last year and $100 million in 2009. Jeremy Moon, the company's founder and chief executive, told this publication that doubling the business within ...
