We just added a new blog to the list. It’s called Boil The Ocean. We don’t know anything about it other than it features something we find rare in skateboard blogging: consistently intelligent opinion regarding skateboarding. We’re just embarrassed that we hadn’t read it until now. Check it, and let us know if you know who’s kicking down all this knowledge.
[Link: Boil The Ocean]
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Action sports mall retailer Zumiez announced their Q3 results today and they weren’t as bad as they could have been.
Total net sales for the third quarter (13 weeks) ended November 1, 2008 increased by 7.9% to $112.2 million from $104.0 million reported in the third quarter ended November 3, 2007 (13 weeks). The company posted net income for the quarter of $6.8 million or $0.23 per diluted share versus $8.1 million or $0.28 per diluted share in the third quarter of the prior fiscal year. Comparable store sales decreased 5.8% for the third quarter of fiscal 2008 compared to a 13.2% increase in the third quarter of fiscal 2007.
According to CEO Rick Brooks, however, “October was the worst montly comp in the company’s history.” The economically hard hit “housing states” are where Zumiez have half their stores and while skate hardgood sales were strong in the first six month, they fell off in the third quarter and the clothing part of the business was hit extremely hard.
Zumiez has seen a slow start on the snow product front. But they say they are committed to finish off the year “clean” on inventory by getting all promotional in Q4 a.k.a. putting things on sale.
[Link: MarketWatch]
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Helmet maker Giro is looking into leaving its current location in Santa Cruz for a new larger location in Scotts Valley, California, according to a story in the San Jose Mercury News.
Giro, a division of Easton-Bell Sports with other offices in Los Angeles, Dallas and Chicago, has outgrown the 30,000-square-foot building it has occupied in the Harvey West business park since 1994, and will ask the company’s board of directors to approve the move in December, according to Kwai Kong, Giro’s president of specialty retail business.
Not bad when the city of Scotts Valley is throwing in $75,000 in “redevelopment funds” to help them move.
[Link: San Jose Mercury News]
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Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Quiksilver’s stock on Wednesday thanks to what it calls “a ‘significant’ level of short-term debt in its capital structure, according to a story on Yahoo Business.
Moody’s downgraded the company’s corporate family rating and probability of default rating two notches to “B2” — a speculative or “junk bond” rating five notches below investment-grade status — from “Ba3,” which is three notches below investment-grade status.
The stock has been down to 91 cents this morning, but it’s back up just over a dollar.
[Link: Yahoo Business]
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It’s that third quarter financial results time of year and Zumiez will be spilling it all for the analysts on their conference call today, November 20, 2008. This should be a good one. Let’s just hope it goes better than the PacSun call on Tuesday. Click here to listen live online: http://ir.zumiez.com.
[Link: BusinessWire]
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Australian customs officials arrested a 33-year-old Australian man on November 20, 2008, after they discovered that the two skateboard decks he was carrying from Auckland New Zealand contained a little more more than 8-plys of maple.
The decks were opened, allegedly revealing three packages containing 600 grams of white powder. . . .Preliminary tests indicated the presence of cocaine, Customs and AFP said.
If found guilty he could face 25 years in prison and or a $550,000 fine.
[Link: The Australian]
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[Link: Snowbroader]
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Time Magazine interviews Kelly Slater and asks hard hitting questions like, “How would you describe the feeling of surfing to someone who has never tried it?” But they also asked the question everyone’s been asking lately: Are you going to try next year?
Well now it’s expected, isn’t it? Everyone’s saying, “Good luck for your tenth!” Everyone’s expecting me to go for it. We’ll see, I don’t know. I haven’t made a decision yet.
We’re betting he will.
[Link: Time Magazine]
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There’s nothing better than a profile in the hometown paper. Take this profile of professional snowboarder Mike Casanova in the Hudson Star Observer for example: the writer’s shameless exuberance is so refreshing. . .
So as a kid, did Mike Casanova ever imagine that he’d be the snowboarding equivalent of a rock star at age 23? . . .Oh, full-blown dream,” he said without hesitation. “I remember sitting there watching videos at my friend Matt Haynie’s house. He would always get all the new (snowboarding) videos. So we would go over to his house and drink Yoo-Hoo chocolate milk and just sit there and geek out watching video after video after video — just talking about all the tricks we wanted to learn.”
We understand completely. He’s a hometown hero to all of us.
[Link: Hudson Star Observer]
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Those with a stomach for SEC filings should bump on over to EDGAR and check out Quiksilver’s 8K filing relating to their sale of Rossignol to Chartreuse et Mont Blanc LLC. The most interesting piece of info we stumbled onto was that selling Rossignol is going to cost Quiksilver $14.7 million.
Transaction costs: $ 9.9 million. Employee-related costs: $ 1.8 million. Other costs: $ 3.0 million. Total costs before taxes: $14.7 million.
That kind of eats into the $40 million Chartreuse et Mont Blanc paid. We didn’t know selling something could be so expense. Quik stock closed down today at $1.04.
[Link: Edgar Online]
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