by The Editors on June 19, 2012
Zumiez announced this morning (June 19, 2012) that they have “signed a definitive purchase agreement” to acquire Austria based action sports click and mortar retailer Blue Tomato for EUR %9.5 million. Founder Gerfried Schuller should be stoked.
“Joining forces with Blue Tomato represents the next step in our strategic plan to build the leading global action sports retail business. Europe has a large, vibrant and growing action sports community, which Gerfried and his team have skillfully tapped into through a broad offering of authentic brands and products, a differentiated retail experience, and superior customer service. The similarities between each organization’s culture and operating philosophies give us great confidence we can successfully leverage our combined expertise to selectively expand Blue Tomato’s European footprint and strengthen our foundation to support future international development.”
Blue Tomato has five stores and does sales of approximately EUR 29.4 million per year (75 percent of that through ecommerce). Not a bad way to jump into European online sales. Follow the jump for the rest of the story. [click to continue…]
by The Editors on June 15, 2012
The OC Weeky’s Andrew Asch profiles Black Flys co-founder Jack Martinez and the company that he is hoping to conjure up from the ashes. Here’s a little piece:
If anything can put Black Flys back on top in OC, it’s Martinez, with his talent for provocation. Under his direction, the brand was about forcing extremes and having a laugh at convention. In a recent interview at his office, located in one of Irvine’s countless, anonymous office parks, Martinez says he believes the eyewear market is stale and that the industry—dominated by retailers such as Hot Topic and Tilly’s—is ready for a more colorful, wild offering from the likes of Black Flys. But, he concedes, a comeback is far from guaranteed. . . “Every day, we ask that question,” says Martinez, who now sports a shaved head and gold tooth. “Has the world changed? Can we come back?”
Click the link for the rest of this comprehensive story.
[Link: OC Weekly]
by The Editors on June 11, 2012
It’s Saturday, June 9, 2012 and Gary Ream, the visionary behind Camp Woodward, is leaning against the railing of the upper observation deck inside Woodward Tahoe’s new 33,000 square foot facility (“The Bunker”) looking out over what they’ve created. He can’t help but smile. Moments before, a BMXer fastplanted over and through the ribbon to officially open the facility, and now a constant stream of kids and their parents pour into the building to check out the six olympic sized trampolines, the foam pits, and the concrete skate park for themselves.
While action luminaries like Tony Hawk, Todd Richards, Mike Vallely, Hannah Teter, Tanner Hall, and Slash dine on catered snacks behind him Ream (pictured right with his daughter Kelsey) looks out over the facility and nods. It’s obvious that he is extremely proud and excited about the new facility, but more than that he seems amped on what this means for the future of Woodward action sports complexes.
“Look at this,” he says gazing off into the cavernous space. “You know there’s obviously a lot of passion here. You listen to the kids, we have a great staff and look at the pros and family that showed up. We did this at Copper. We did this in Bejing. We listened to the kids, we listened to the pros. We added a little capital and a bunch of passion and we’re going to do this again.”
Follow the jump for the rest of the story and a slew of photos from the Grand Opening. [click to continue…]
by The Editors on June 8, 2012
How nice would it be to run a business where losing $5.1 million in a quarter is good news? For Quiksilver a $5.1 million loss is much better than last year’s $81.7 million Q2 loss, according to a story in Businessweek.
The surf-inspired clothing and gear company posted a loss of $5.1 million, or 3 cents per share, for the quarter that ended April 30. That is down from $81.7 million, or 51 cents per share, in the same quarter last year, when the company incurred a $74.1 million non-cash goodwill impairment charge on its business in Australia and Japan.
Quiksilver’s stock was up 25 cents to $2.69. For a complete transcript of the most recent conference call, click here.
[Link: Businessweek and Seeking Alpha]
by The Editors on June 6, 2012
The CEO position at Nike’s surf brand Hurley has been in seemingly constant rotation since the the footwear giant bought the Costa Mesa, California based company in February of 2002.
So news on Monday, June 4, 2012 that company founder Bob Hurley (pictured right with his grandson Ashton at the 2012 Nike Lowers Pro) was moving back into the “interim CEO” roll was really not all that surprising seeing that Hurley CEO Michael Egeck announced that he was moving to lead middle-aged wannabe outdoorsman clothier Eddie Bauer.
For those keeping track, Hurley has now had four CEOs in the past 16 months. Here’s how it has all gone down: Bob Hurley was CEO until October 2007 when he was replaced by Nike insider Roger Wyett. Wyett then handed the position off to former Dockers President Jim Calhoun in April of 2011 only to move the man over to Converse a month later. Wyett served as interim CEO until September 2011 when former VF Corp. veteran Michael Egeck was hired for the CEO position. Egeck lasted approximately eight months before exiting. Now, Hurley is back to where it started with CEOs.
Three things come to mind. One, from our perspective there is no one better equipped to guide the direction of Hurley than Bob. Two, it must be hell trying to be CEO of the Hurley brand in Bob’s shadow, especially for the kind of business jocks who love being the boss. And finally three, how long will Nike continue to juggle CEO’s before they just drop the whole thing? Guess we’ll all know soon enough.
[Link: Portland Business Journal and BusinessWeek]
by The Editors on June 5, 2012
Pacific Sunwear CEO Gary Schoenfeld isn’t backing down on his company’s stock. In fact, beginning May 29, 2012 he bought 150,000 more shares “on behalf of his children,” according to a story in the Orange County Business Journal.
The shares—bought starting May 29—were priced between $1.45 and $1.55 each.
All together Schoenfeld and other company directors bought up 300,000 shares and pushed the stock up 10 percent in trading on Monday, June 4, 2012. It’s up to $1.71 now. Just think if they bought a couple million shares? Kids might start actually start shopping at PacSun again. Or maybe that isn’t the way to stock price is tied in. . .
[Link: Orange County Business Journal]
by The Editors on June 5, 2012
Ryan Stutt and the die-hard print magazine enthusiasts behind the Canadian skate and snow magazines King Shit and King Snow are diving into the travel magazine world with a new titled called Later. Here’s their elevator pitch:
LATER. speaks to an audience of people who travel regularly to do what they love—be it surfing, skating, snowboarding or just getting weird in a foreign land. It features content from all over the globe and from a hugely diverse group of contributors —from pro surfers, skateboarders and snowboarders, to random people who just had a funny story from the road. . . “When all is said and done, you’ll never remember that week you worked overtime and went to sleep early, but passing out on a Mexican beach, getting robbed and scoring the best waves of your life are memories that will last forever,” said Editor Andrew Sayer.
From the looks of King Shit and King Snow, Later will be a lush, quality papered, fifth-color-and-varnish magazine that will go great on the coffee table, and with Keith Malloy man-handling a squid on the first cover Later promises to be “authentically hip.” Follow the jump for the official word. [click to continue…]
by The Editors on June 1, 2012
Don’t think that Nike is afraid to dump brands that don’t fit in with its current growth plans. According to a story on Zacks.com, the owner of Hurley and Converse is planning to “divest” soccer brand Umbro and its dress shoe label Cole Haan. And they hope to get it done by May of 2012.
We believe the reason behind the divestiture is that Cole Haan and Umbro’s performance does not match with the performance of Nike’s other brands. . . We believe the company’s decision to divest its two underperforming brands will boost its bottom line. Meanwhile,in an attempt to expand its global reach and market share, Nike is capitalizing on growth opportunities in emerging markets, especially China.
Maybe this will allow Nike to spend even more on action sports global domination.
[Link: Zacks]
by The Editors on May 29, 2012
Action headphone company Skullcandy has the honor of being one of the most shorted stocks on the market, but that hasn’t seemed to have slowed the stock down so much lately, according to a blurb on Investorguide.com.
While this should be discouraging news for most companies, an increasing number of analysts are turning bullish on the stock, believing that the stock is set to rally strongly on the inevitable short squeeze. Skullcandy has beat Wall Street estimates for the past four quarters. Meanwhile, institutional ownership of the stock has climbed from 50% to 69.18% in a single quarter, while short interest has risen from 5.1 million to 10.3 million.
It would seem that almost everyone has an opinion on Skullcandy’s future these days. We’re giving it a neutral.
[Link: Investor Guide]
by The Editors on May 16, 2012
The Snow Industries of America today confirmed what any snowboard retailer knows by heart–this last snowboard season was hard no matter how you look at it. No snow early season got everyone off to a dismal start, Christmas roared in as a valiant savior, but then things fell apart again. For retailers, the only consolation seems to be shared misery.
Snow sports unit sales declined 12% overall this season, including a 17% decrease in units sold through chain stores and a 14% decrease in specialty shops. However, Internet sales did rather well, and increased 10% this year driven by late season equipment and accessories sales. This may indicate that many retailers are using commerce enabled websites to move product when in-shop sales have slowed. Excluding carryover, online unit sales increased 15% through February and March this season, compared to February and March 2010/2011.
For more of this happy, happy news, follow the jump. [click to continue…]
Zumiez announced this morning (June 19, 2012) that they have “signed a definitive purchase agreement” to acquire Austria based action sports click and mortar retailer Blue Tomato for EUR %9.5 million. Founder Gerfried Schuller should be stoked. 
