Thanks to what is being called “significantly lower income-tax benefits and weaker markets” Quiksilver’s fourth-quarters earnings were down 94 percent, according to a story on Marketwatch.
In the latest quarter, Quiksilver recorded a benefit for income taxes of $7.4 million, significantly lower than the $64.3 million provision recorded a year earlier. . . For the quarter ended Oct. 31, Quiksilver posted a profit of $4.4 million, or two cents a share, down from $67.9 million, or 38 cents a share. Excluding special items such as impairment charges and restructuring expenses, profit was seven cents a share in the latest quarter. Revenue grew 2.5% to $559 million.
In spite of all this CEO Bob McKnight is “pleased, despite economic headwinds in certain markets, especially Europe and Australia, that revenues for fiscal 2012 increased across all three regions, all three major brands and all three distribution channels, in constant currency.” So there’s that.
Rather than spend all year gathering footage and then putting it together into one movie to be shown next year, Rome Snowboards is doing a movie each month for 12 months. They’ve cleverly named the project 12 Months. Here is the November offering.
The New York Times looks into the issue of global warming and the future of the snow resort business. If some scientists are correct the entire business could look quite different in 78 years (not that we’d care all that much at that point.)
Under certain warming forecasts, more than half of the 103 ski resorts in the Northeast will not be able to maintain a 100-day season by 2039, according to a study to be published next year by Daniel Scott, director of the Interdisciplinary Center on Climate Change at the University of Waterloo in Ontario.. . . In the Rockies, where early conditions have also been spotty, average winter temperatures are expected to rise as much as 7 degrees by the end of the century. Park City, Utah, could lose all of its snowpack by then. In Aspen, Colo., the snowpack could be confined to the top quarter of the mountain. So far this season, several ski resorts in Colorado have been forced to push back their opening dates.
Guess by that time the kids will have to move indoors to some refrigerated slopes. Or, maybe the Republicans are right and by then we’ll be entering the next ice age. Who do you believe?
Josh Kalis guests this week as the host of the DGK sponsored game show Who’s More Ghetto with contestants Gary Rogers and Derrick Wilson. Kind of reminds us of an old Big Brother interview, but we’ll leave it at that.
Yep, Kimmy Fasani, Hannah Teter, Kelly Clark, Cilka Sadar, Arielle Gold, and Enni Rukajarvi certainly do know how to push sticks through the snow out in the woods. Check it.
Vert skater, TV host, and photographer Neal Hendrix will present a showing of his images titled Exhibition: Photo at The Garage at UNIV in Encinitas, California on Friday December 14, 2012.
Neal Hendrix has spent the last twenty years living his dream as a professional skateboarder. Over that span, he accumulated a lot of broken bones, a couple million frequent flyer miles, a handful of X-Games medals and a passion to bring home amazing photos from the far-flung lands where skateboarding has taken him. Neal currently skates for Elephant Skateboards and is the Brand Manager at Camp Woodward. . . “Skateboarding has shown me the world. I started out with crappy film cameras, moved to equally crappy digital point-and-shoot cameras, and eventually evolved to respectable tools of the trade,” says Neal. “Throughout that evolution, my creative passion crystalized: looking through a lens is no longer about documenting the places that I’ve skateboarded, but about capturing moments in the lives of people who live so differently from me, who get through their day in unusual ways, and who have never even seen a skateboard.”
Nixon’s snow team is happy to welcome Nicolas Müller to its ranks.
“Nico is, without doubt, one of the most respected riders in the world,” stated Chad DiNenna, Nixon co-founder and E.V.P. of Marketing. “Not only by pro snowboarders, but across the wider boardsport industry and community. That feeling of respect is also shared by every one of our team riders, and that’s why it was easy to have him join us. We’re all pumped to welcome him onboard.”
For the official word, including what JP Walker thinks of Nico joining the team, follow the jump. [click to continue…]
While we were watching the American Giving Awards on NBC Saturday night, December 8, 2012, we had the thought: if you’re going to throw an awards show it might as well be awarding people who are actually doing things to help others. And, that’s where the Costa Mesa, California based Krochet Kids International comes in. They won a $500,000 cash prize, according to a story in the Orange County Register.
Krochet Kids international, established in 2008 by three surfers — Kohl Crecelius, Stewart Ramsey and Travis Hartanov — took the trio’s hobby of crocheting hats to Uganda government camps, where refugees from local rebels had been living for as long as 20 years. The Costa Mesa organization teaches women to make the hats; it then markets them internationally. . . Last year, a second operation was set up in Lima, Peru, to help impoverished women living in the city.
Now it would appear that the kids have a little more funding to build their socially conscious business. Then some day Krochet Kids will get so big that they’ll have to employ entire factories of third world workers to make their clothes.
Emily “Mimi” Watts, a 26-year-old British snowboarder (pictured right), is fighting for her life in an Annecy, France hospital after falling headfirst into a snowdrift and being stuck for 45 minutes at Chamonix on Saturday afternoon, December 8, 2012. She had suffered cardiac arrest by the time rescuers arrived, according to a story in the Daily Mail.
Describing Mimi as ‘heavenly’ and with a ‘passion for life’, her aunt Shona Pollock said her parents and brothers had rushed to be at her bedside. . . The design student was evacuated to hospital in nearby Annecy, before being transferred to a specialist unit. . . Miss Pollock said: ‘She is not very well I am afraid, she is still alive, but she is not very well, the family are at her bedside, they are all there. . . ‘We don’t know exactly what happened at the moment, but we believe she was snowboarding on piste and they tend to do little jumps. . . and went into a snow fall and suffocated. . . ‘That is what they think, but nobody quite knows for sure.
Our thoughts are with Watts and her family and friends. We hope she can pull through this.
[Editors’ Note: As of December 12, 2012 it appears that Mimi Watts is and has been “brain dead” since she suffocated on the hill and that her family says “it is only a matter of time before her life support is switched off.” Sad news for everyone. Mail Online.
[Update December 13, 2012: Mimi Watts has died according to a story on Sky News. She was 26.]
Thanks to what is being called “significantly lower income-tax benefits and weaker markets” Quiksilver’s fourth-quarters earnings were down 94 percent, according to a story on Marketwatch.
