by The Editors on April 3, 2009
After a meeting between Adrenalina CEO Ilia Lekach and several independent Pacific Sunwear directors Pac Sun has announced that the proxy contest is over.
Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. said Friday that Adrenalina, which has expressed its interest in acquiring the California teen clothing retailer, has ended its proxy contest by withdrawing its nominations of four candidates for election to the Pacific Sunwear board.
Maybe it’s the hearty retailer climate.
[Link: FOX Business]
by The Editors on April 2, 2009
After the January 2009 ASR show we’d be surprised at nothing, but ASR today announced that they are moving the dates for 2010 to February 3-4 and August 14-16.
“By realigning ASR’s dates we believe the industry can best position itself for future growth,” says Andy Tompkins, ASR Group Show Director. “Through ongoing dialogue with both our exhibitor and retail attendees, it became apparent that the timing of the ASR January show was too early to completely service fall line breaks. In the future, August show dates will allow buyers to preview the entire landscape of action sports product before making purchase decisions.”
And according to quotes from VeeCo’s Tom Ruiz, and Lost’s Joel Cooper these dates are great. Follow the jump for the entire release.
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by The Editors on April 1, 2009
As baffled as we are by the timing of this announcement (no, it’s not an April Fools joke), it would appear from a story posted on the Transworld Business website that Transworld Media reduced its staff today by eight people.
Here’s what Transworld Business Publisher Rob Campbell said:
We’ve had to report on a lot of layoffs over the past six months. Unfortunately, those stories usually involved friends and great people we’ve had close working relationships with for years. Today, the news hits especially close to home. . . TransWorld has eliminated eight positions within the company. Departments affected are TransWorld Business, Transworld Surf, TransWorld Skateboarding sales, marketing, and finance. More specifically, TransWorld Business lost two editors.
These “eight positions eliminated” do not appear to include a change made yesterday in the sales group at TransWorld’s Tustin office.
[Link: TransWorld Business]
by The Editors on April 1, 2009
[April Fools Day Story 2009] Looks like even the coolest guys in the skateboarding world can be dumb with their money. In a story released this morning the Skatepark of Tampa has announced that it will be filing for chapter 11 reorganization protection after opening too many stores and running up nearly $20 million in debt to a Tampa gentlemen’s club.
Owner Brian Schaefer said that he hopes the bankruptcy filing, while painful, will allow the company, which is celebrating its 16th anniversary, to begin the healing process and return to being a strong company with 993 stores instead of 1001. . . “We look forward to creating a great Skatepark of Tampa that is an asset to all of its partners,” he said. . . . Schaefer and GM, Ryan Clements, have met with 30 vendors in the past three weeks to explain the situation, Schaefer said. He said vendors have been very supportive and have said they will ship fresh goods to Skatepark of Tampa on a COD basis. Some have even said they will offer SPoT credit terms as soon as Skatepark of Tampa filed for bankruptcy, Schaefer said.
For the rest of the sad, sad story and a chart featuring the top 20 creditors click the link.
[Link: Skatepark of Tampa]
by The Editors on March 25, 2009
No surprise here, but looks like Burton was also forced to make some changes to the way they are doing business thanks to the current “no buy” economy, according to the Burlington Free Press.
The cuts include layoffs of “less than 5 percent of its staff in North America,” and a decision by company founders Jake and Donna Carpenter to eliminate their own salaries. . . . “This has been a very painful process for us, and considering the global economic situation, we’ve done everything in our power to save as many jobs as possible,” Burton CEO Laurent Potdevin said in a company news release. . . . “Our goal this entire year has been to cut as many costs as possible on a global level, like sales meetings, travel and new hires so that we could avoid cutting people. Instead of a much larger number of layoffs, we decided to take a different approach, which is temporarily reducing salaries on a sliding scale from 0 to 15 percent for employees in North America.”
Smart business actually.
[Link: Burlington Free Press]
by The Editors on March 24, 2009
Tiffany Montgomery has been all over the Active bankruptcy coverage on Shop-eat-surf.com. Today, she drove to the Federal Courthouse in Riverside and picked up a copy of the bankruptcy filings and is kicking down all the details.
Also of note is the list of Active’s 20 largest unsecured creditors, which reads like a Who’s Who of action sports brands. Active owes a total of $8.8 million to its 20 largest unsecured creditors. . . .Interestingly, only one brand is on the list of secured creditors – the Burton Corporation. Secured creditors get payment priority in a bankruptcy.
Montgomery also notes that Active is cutting their contracts with the following team members: “Andrew Reynolds, Kenny Anderson, Billy Marks, Erik Ellington, Daewong Song and Jim Greco.
Looks like P-Rod and some others have escaped the axe of the time being. For more details (including the list of creditors with amounts owed) follow the jump.
[Link: Shop-eat-surf.com]
by The Editors on March 19, 2009
According to an 8-K filed on March 13, 2009 by Spy Optic parent company Orange 21 the company has cut employee pay by 10 percent for at least three months.
Pursuant to the Reduction, the annual base salaries of the Company’s salaried employees were reduced by ten percent (10%) and the Company’s hourly employees were put on reduced work schedules that resulted in their compensation being reduced by ten percent (10%).
When you figure that nearly everything but fuel, food, and healthcare seems to be running at about 50% off it’s really not that bad.
[Link: SEC.gov via Outdoor Business Update]
by The Editors on March 19, 2009
Casey Wasserman’s march to own a majority stake action sports media moved forward today as the founders of GrindTV announced that they were being rolled into Wasserman Media Groups’ Sportnet to form a new company owned by Wasserman’s Sportnet in partnership with Softbank Capital.
“By joining forces with Sportnet, we now have access to deep sport-specific communities on sites such as Wetsand.com, Motocross.com and Skateboard.com. We are committed to leveraging these complementary online properties to create the leading action sports media company for fans, marketers, and the industry,” said GrindTV’s CEO Erik Hawkins and COO Greg Morrow. . . . “The combination of GrindTV and Sportnet creates a clear market-leader in the exciting action sports segment,” said SoftBank Capital Managing Director Eric Hippeau. “We have been behind GrindTV from the very beginning, and its always exciting when a portfolio company takes flight.”
And then someday, when all the deals are done someone might actually discover a profitable revenue stream.
Follow the jump for the entire release.
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by The Editors on March 18, 2009
We kind of laugh when we see that Nike lumps Hurley and Converse under the header “Other Businesses” along with Cole Haan, Nike Golf and Umbro when it releases financial reports. But either way, while profits at the mother ship declined 47 percent it looks like the “other businesses” survived the storm.
For the third quarter, revenue for the Other businesses, which include Cole Haan, Converse Inc., Hurley International LLC, NIKE Golf, and Umbro Ltd, increased 1 percent to $592.2 million compared to $587.4 million last year with the group posting a third quarter pre-tax loss of $344.1 million versus pretax income of $106.1 million for the same period last year.
None of this is really comparable though because they didn’t have the same “other businesses” last year that they have now. How’s that for insights into the business. Apparently, someone in the “other businesses” is doing just fine. We’ll assume for entertainment sake that it’s Hurley. Good job, Bob.
[Link: MarketWatch]
by The Editors on March 18, 2009
Nike, Inc. is releasing its third quarter fiscal 2009 financial results today, March 18, 2009, at approximately 1:15 p.m. PT, following the close of regular stock market trading hours. Following the news release, NIKE management will host a conference call beginning at 2:00 p.m. PT to review the results.
We’re not sure they will go into much SB, 6.0, or Hurley detail, but the whole think can be listened to live on the web at www.nikebiz.com/investors. An archived version of the call will be available through midnight, March 25, 2009.
[Link: BusinessWire]
After a meeting between Adrenalina CEO Ilia Lekach and several independent Pacific Sunwear directors Pac Sun has announced that the proxy contest is over.
