The “Our Park” video was posted to Youtube by Hybebeast TV and explains how Nike’s plans to build a skate plaza in Tokyo’s Miyashita Park aren’t sitting well with the artists who frequent the park, nor the homeless people who live there. Check it out.
[Link: The Smoking Section via Skate & Annoy]
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Quiksilver is doing something nice for some of their employees according to tender offer papers filed yesterday (April 19, 2010) with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
According to the documents, Quiksilver is now giving eligible employees and contractors the ability to trade in their underwater stock options for a fewer number stock options at what may be a reduced price. Those who have options with an “exercise price per share greater than $7.71” that were “granted prior to October 19, 2008 under the Company’s Amended and Restated 2000 Stock Incentive Plan” have until 5 PM Pacific Time on May 17, 2010 to decide if they’d like to trade their options in for fewer options at the stock’s price on May 18, 2010.
Here’s why the Quik decided on the changes:
We believe that an effective and competitive incentive program for our employees and consultants is imperative for the success of our business. We rely on our experienced and productive employees and consultants and their efforts to help us achieve our business objectives. At Quiksilver, stock options constitute a key component of our incentive and retention programs because we believe that equity compensation encourages employees and consultants to act like owners of the business, motivating them to work toward our success and rewarding their contributions by allowing them to benefit from increases in the value of our shares.
Options eligible for the trade cover an aggregate of 4,105,852 shares or $10 million worth. One upside is that for most employees (excluding some European workers) the new stock options have a five-year term, rather than the Quik’s regular 10-year term. Any eligible employees who’d rather have their stock option money sooner rather than later might find this deal extremely attractive, and may actually give them a reason to stick around a little longer.
[Link: SEC]
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Eneliko “Liko” Smith, the Las Vegas-based hotelier who got into both financial and legal trouble in South Lake Tahoe with The Block chain of snowboard-themed hotels is reportedly planning to spend about $10 million to purchase Leelanau County, Michigan’s “long-shuttered Sugar Loaf Resort,” according to a story in the Traverse City Record-Eagle.
Oddly, it appears that few locals knew of unpaid-tax charges against Smith in California’s Eldorado County.
Leelanau County Commissioner Melinda Lautner wonders how plenty of red flags went unnoticed as Sugar Loaf’s owners and some county officials touted Smith as an ideal buyer. . . “I’m greatly concerned that there are people in our county that were this far along in agreements and plans, etcetera, and hadn’t even Googled the guy,” she said. “I’m kind of stunned.” . . . Still, Lautner said, concerned county officials won’t have much say in the matter if Smith doesn’t opt to use brownfield dollars or other public incentives. . . . “On a totally private deal, the county has absolutely no involvement,” she said. . . Commission Chair Mary Tonneberger agrees. . . . “I don’t think we have the ability on a private sale to examine the financial status of the buyer,” she said.
County offices apparently received many emails questioning the sale. The guy certainly keeps business rolling no matter what.
[Link: Traverse City Record-Eagle via Transworld Business]
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Houston, Texas based oil man William Kallop filed documents today (April 15, 2010) with the SEC stating that his Offshore Exploration and Production, LLC owns 7 percent (or 9,081,590 shares of Quiksilver common stock). The names of the reporting persons include Mr. Kallop, as well as Brooks Kallop and Brent Kallop who own .1 percent each.
Kallop, who made significant off-shore oil discoveries in Peru through Petro-Tech Peruana, a Peruvian subsidiary of his privately owned The Offshore International Group in 2005, sold his company in February 2009 to Korean National Oil Corp and Columbia’s Ecopetrol for a reported $900 million, according to a story in Offshore Magazine.
Peru’s president Alan Garcia later asked the Peruvian Congress to investigate the timing of Offshore International Group sale, according to a story on The Motely Fool, because Petro-Tech Peruana was “under investigation for possible connections to illegally taped conversations in an oil-kickback scandal” that caused “the worst political crisis” in Garcia’s two year administration.
A couple things are for sure: Mr. Kallop knows his way around international business, and his owning $48 million in Quiksilver stock would seem to suggest that he is rather bullish on the brand currently.
[Link: SEC, Offshore Magazine, The Motely Fool]
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Orange County California’s Chapman University created a new Chapman Entrepreneur of the Year award and they are giving the very first one to Volcom’s Richard Woolcott.
The honor, which Sudek said “reflects the dynamic entrepreneurial spirit of Southern California,” is meant to recognize the vital role Orange County plays in American business. . . Richard Woolcott co-founded Volcom in 1991. He has served as the company’s CEO since that time, and took the company public in 2005. In addition to his business credentials, Woolcott is also an athlete and member of the Scholastic Surfing Association Hall of Fame.
Wooly better make some more space in his trophy case. . .
[click to continue…]
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Quiksilver today announced that they are selling off most of their non-Roxy bikini brands including Raisins, Raisins Girls, Leilani, Island Soul, and Island Escape to New York-based Breaking Waves International, a unit of AOM Holdings LLC, according to a story in the Orange County Business Journal. A press released posted on Global Surf News featured the following:
Craig Stevenson, President of Quiksilver Americas, stated, “As we review our operating priorities we are keenly focused on our core businesses of Quiksilver, Roxy, DC and, increasingly, Mervin. . . . In that context, and after evaluating opportunities for our other women’s swim brands, we felt the best course of action for our shareholders, our customers and our employees was to sell these women’s swim brands to AOM Holdings, who came forward with an attractive offer. AOM has extensive experience in the swim category and we are pleased that they have expressed their intent to continue to operate these brands within their existing channels of distribution.”
Oddly, no mention of Quik’s Radio Fiji line was made. Maybe no one wanted that one.
[Link: Orange County Business Journal, Global Surf News, Transworld Business, and Shop-Eat-Surf]
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The Magazine Publishers of America released their Q1 2010 survey of magazine advertising pages last week and guess what? Things aren’t getting worse as quickly as they were last year at this time. Last year Q1 ad pages were down 26 percent industry wide. This year, they’re only down 9.4 percent.
What does this mean to action sports media? Unfortunately, the only action sports titles tracked by the MPA are Bonnier’s Transworld Media titles. And while last year they did better than the industry average, this year they are more than double below (even after shuttering Quad Off-Road Magazine last year).
Here’s how it looks for the Transworld titles:
2010 2009 %change TRANSWORLD SURF 151.26 195.54 -22.6 TRANSWORLD SKATEBOARDING 242.79 304.15 -20.2 TRANSWORLD SNOWBOARDING 290.50 359.48 -19.2 TRANSWORLD MOTOCROSS 203.49 244.17 -16.7 RIDE BMX 75.41 75.10 0.3
According to the MPA, in the first three months of 2010 Transworld Media print advertising was down a total of 215.3 advertising pages when compared to the same period in 2009. Assuming an average rate per page of $2,500 this represents about $538,250 in revenue for the quarter.
Then again, the Transworld titles look great when compared to many of Bonnier’s magazines. For instance, in the same quarter Wakeboarding was down 49 percent, Skiing Magazine down 41 percent, and Sport Diver was down 36.5 percent vs. 2009. In fact, of all the magazines tracked by the MPA, Bonnier had six of the ten biggest percent Q1 advertising losers in US publishing.
It wasn’t all bad news in print advertising according to a story in The New York Times. Three categories of magazine advertising were actually up:
. . . financial, insurance and real estate (up 11.3 percent from 2009); cosmetics and toiletries (up 7.6 percent) and automotive (up 1.3 percent.)
Guess we’re going to see more double pits to chesty advertising in the near future. . .
[Link: Magazine Publishers of America and New York Times]
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When the Excalibur Gondola at Whistler-Blackcomb failed in December of 2008 it left at least 12 people tapped in dangling gondolas. Now, the legal ramifications of that afternoon are coming back to haunt the resort in the form of lawsuits according to CKNW Radio.
Two separate civil suits have been filed in BC Supreme Court on behalf of Whistler residents Christopher and Michelle Pond. . . This brings to 5 the number of suits against Intrawest and gondola manufacturer Doppelmayr. . . .The Ponds are making separate claims alleging they were injured when Tower 4 of the Excalibur collapsed sending several gondola’s to the ground, rooftops and trees.
Wonder if Intrawest have anything left after the Olympics?
[Link: CKNW]
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According to a video interview on Forbes.com titled Skateboarder’s Millions Rob Dyrdek brought in $75 million in revenue from sales and endorsements in 2009. But he didn’t do it like other “big name athletes” he did it himself.
This empire isn’t like a Tony Hawk empire or a traditional big name athlete empire where they do their sport and then everything around them is sort of is put in place for them through their managers and agents and all this stuff,” Dyrdek tells Forbes. “This is a singular world that is sort of based off my skateboarding lifestyle and not me as a professional athlete.”
Was that a little slag thrown T. Hawk’s way? Looks like Rob is coming up. He did have this little note that he learned from Virgin’s Sir Richard Branson: “When you do everything yourself you’re a millionaire. When you hire great people to do everything for you you’re a billionaire.”
[Link: Forbes]
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If you do a little funky math it would appear that March was amazing for core mall retailer Zumiez. Their total sales for the five-week period ended April 3, 2010 were up 20.1 percent to $35.8 million vs $29.8 million in 2009 and their same store comps were up 13.2%. For comparison, same store comps were down 17.9% for the same period in 2009.
Either the economy is turning around or people have just said screw it and are blowing what little money they have left on iPads and logo Ts.
[Link: CNN/Money]
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