After losing money each year for most of the last decade, the investors behind the Carlsbad, California based Spy Optic have finally secured an exit in Bollé Brands, according to a press release from the company. The terms of the deal were not announced.
“We are excited to have acquired such an amazing brand. SPY Optic has its own unique and irreverent identity with huge growth potential in North America, its home market, and internationally where SPY Optic will leverage our Bollé Brands international distribution network,” said Peter Smith, CEO of Bollé Brands. “Our dedicated approach, support, and investment will drive exciting new developments in product innovation and design which will form the basis of considerable global growth. This new acquisition establishes Bollé Brands as one of the key players in the premium performance sport and lifestyle eyewear and helmets markets.”
Bollé, which was formerly owned by Vista Outdoor (they sold the brand in September 2018), is currently owned by A&M Capital Europe, SCSp: a France-based private equity arm of the Greenwich, Connecticut based A&M Capital Partners. (Nice that someone is smart enough to find value in all this, right). For the official word form Bollé please follow the jump.
Spy released more mostly good news today while reporting financials for the year ended December 31, 2013. The company reported sales of $37.7 million. And that’s up $2.6 million over 2012.
“With continued strong SPY® brand sales and an annual SPY® brand growth of 8% for 2013 over 2012, we are happy to once again generate annual growth and achieve our 11th quarter in a row of year over year growth of our SPY® brand products. What is also noteworthy is we had income from operations of $0.4 million during 2013 compared to an operating loss of $5.0 million in 2012,” said Michael Marckx, President and CEO. “We not only managed to significantly reduce our operating expenses for 2013, but also increased our margin to 50% in 2013 from 46% in 2012, which is a dramatic positive shift for us. This directly reflects the strong demand for our product offering as well as the operational and manufacturing efficiencies that we have achieved over the past year.”
They also cut their net annual loss in more than half be going only $2.9 million into the red compared to $7.2 million in 2012. Nice work all around. For the official word from Spy, follow the jump. [click to continue…]
Spy announced its 10th consecutive quarter of year or year growth when it release financials for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2013. Q3 sales were up 3 percent over 2012 and sales during the last nine months were up 8 percent. to $29.1 million.
“We are very happy to have achieved our 10th consecutive quarter of year over year growth of SPY® brand products, with strong SPY® brand year to date sales growth of 8% in 2013 over of the same period in 2012, and year to date sales in 2013 were 19% higher than the same period in 2011,” said Michael Marckx, President and CEO. “In addition to the expanding Happy Lens™ Collection, we are pleased with the year to date growth of our Rx and goggle product lines that grew by 110% and 13%, respectively, in 2013 compared to 2012. The growth of these product lines helps diversify our revenue portfolio while expanding our SPY® brand. We achieved our third consecutive quarter of operating profit and had positive cash flow from operations. We believe our solid year to date results position us well for the fourth quarter of 2013 and into 2014.”
Spy is still moving in the right direction, yet still have a ways to go. For the official word from Spy, follow the jump. [click to continue…]
Spy finished off another quarter of increased sales and lower losses as they logged $19 million in sales for the first half of 2013, according to financials released today, August 7, 2013.
“We are really happy to have achieved our 9th consecutive quarter of year over year growth of SPY® brand products, with strong SPY® brand sales growth of 10% in the first half of 2013 over the first half of 2012, and the first half of 2013 was 29% higher than the first half of 2011,” said Michael Marckx, President and CEO. “Moving forward, our Happy Lens Collection is expanding to include a growing list of new styles and will be featured in our Rx, Performance and Goggle Collections, which will further leverage this innovation in many ways. On top of our successful Happy Lens launch, we are even more pleased with the combination of things we accomplished this half: solid sales growth, improved gross margins, lower operating expenses, positive cash flow from operations and income from operations. We believe this solid first half of the year helps to position us well for the balance of 2013.”
Unfortunately, the company is still not out of the red yet. Spy lost $1.3 million in the first half of 2013, down from $4.2 million in the same period of 2012. For the official word from Spy, follow the jump. [click to continue…]
Spy Optic continued on its long road to profitability in 2012 with a 13 percent increase in sales over 2011 and a $3.8 million cut in losses (Down to $7.2 from $11.02 million in 2011). With sales of $35.1 million in 2012, the company still has a ways to go, but President and CEO Michael Marckx is confident that things are headed in the right direction.
“With continued strong SPY® brand sales, and an annual growth of 13% for 2012 over 2011, we are happy to have achieved our 7th consecutive quarter of year over year growth of SPY® brand products. This is very encouraging for our efforts in 2013, as we have major initiatives lined up, the most important of which is our SPY® Happy Lens™ — the most innovative product SPY® has ever launched. These results also again suggest the strength of our renewed brand positioning and strategies, as also evidenced by increased market share driven by our unique new product collections,” said Michael Marckx, President and CEO. “We are also pleased that our efforts have really paid off with improved gross margins compared to the fourth quarter and annual results of last year. Our top line results were achieved despite significantly lower operating expenses, which in the fourth quarter of 2012 were 29% lower than the fourth quarter of 2011 and sequentially 25% better than the third quarter of 2012. These factors together with our strong annual growth, nicely improved margins, and substantially lower spending, are the hallmarks of a strengthening brand.”
Spy Inc. is happy to report that in the quarter ended September 30, 2012 they only lost $1.8 million on total net sales of $9.9 million. The loss is down from $3 million in the same quarter in 2011. Couple that with net sales being up eight percent, and an increased borrowing capacity from Costa Brava Partnership III, L.P. and it appears things are continuing toward profitability. And that’s always good
“With strong SPY® brand sales growth of 17% for 3rd quarter of 2012 over 2011, building on the huge SPY® brand growth rate of 25% for the 3rd quarter of 2011 over 2010, we are happy to have achieved our 6th consecutive quarter of year over year growth of SPY® brand products. We feel this once again demonstrates the strength of our renewed brand positioning and exciting new product collection,” said Michael Marckx, President and CEO. “We are especially pleased that we were able to grow our North American snow goggle and sunglass businesses because of such a poor snow season last year that we believe caused many of our retailers to have relatively high inventory levels going into this 2012 fall snow goggle buying season.”
Spy just launched a collection of “vintage inspired” sunglasses titled the Crosstown Collection. They’re describing them as “stylish, handmade sunglasses inspired by ’50s and ‘60s fashion, music.”
“We worked with a small crew of athletes and fashion-forward advocates with the intent of reinventing ‘classiness’ with our own point of view,” says Michael Marckx, SPY President. “We cut our design team loose to represent what’s happening within the creative ranks of our universe, to make something that they completely groove on, which led to a really unique handmade approach that you can feel and certainly see in the line.”
Spy Optic president Michael Marckx continues on his march to reposition the company in a more forward facing directly. Yesterday afternoon he announced the hiring of from Patagonia Surf Shop instigator Devon Howard as marketing director for the company.
“Devon has deep California lifestyle roots, operational know-how, marketing savvy and meaningful relationships in our industry, which he has nurtured over his career,” says Marckx. “He is also really well liked and connected on so many levels, and not just in the surf world, but across the subcultures that make up our west coast lifestyle. I’ve seen Devon do great work on every level, smartly, with other good people. His unique blend of talents will unquestionably enhance our brand in myriad ways and help give shape to the new version of SPY he will help create with us.
In financials released today (November 14, 2011) Spy Optic has announced that net sales in the quarter ended September 30, 2011 were up 33 percent to $9.2 million, however, the company still lost $3 million on the quarter compared to $900,000 in the same three months in 2010.
“We are very pleased with the growth that we generated this quarter, particularly in our core SPY® products which had nice growth in both goggles and sunglasses, in North America and internationally. This is especially encouraging following the significant decline the Company had in the first quarter of the year,” said Orange 21 President Michael Marckx. “Our new team’s focus on the marketing, product development and sales programs to leverage the core SPY® brand appears to be gaining traction on many fronts.”
Increased sales would suggest that things are definitely moving in the right direction, however profitability would likely be even better. Follow the jump for the official details. [click to continue…]
Losses at Orange 21, the parent of Spy Optic, increased $1.2 million in 2010 to $4.6 for the Carlsbad, California based eyewear marketer, according to financial repors for the year ended December 31, 2011. But some of those losses were actually investments according to CEO Stone Douglass.
“We are pleased with our results for 2010 even though we had substantial direct and indirect additional operating costs related to our two newest brands, Margaritaville and Melodies by MJB, for which there have been minimal sales during this period,” commented Stone Douglass, the Company’s Chief Executive Officer. “Gross margins increased to 48% for the year ended December 31, 2010 from 40% during the comparable period in 2009, aided by more effective sourcing in Asia, and improved operations and a more favorable Euro to U.S. Dollar exchange rate on purchases from our Italian manufacturer, LEM.”
To get the full story tune in to Orange 21 investor conference call on March 30, 2011 at 1:30 PM PST. Just dial 1-866-711-8198[click to continue…]
After losing money each year for most of the last decade, the investors behind the Carlsbad, California based Spy Optic have finally secured an exit in Bollé Brands, according to a press release from the company. The terms of the deal were not announced.
