Back in 2002, Globe bought Kubic Marketing, the holding company for World Industries and Dwindle. It turned out that their timing couldn’t have been worse in terms of the skateboarding industry cycle. Just about the time they dug their way out of that glitch, the Great Recession hit and had the same kind of impact […]
Globe’s Half Year; The Plan Seems to be Coming Together Read More »
Some people up in Canada decided, for whatever reason, to start an action sports industry news magazine called The BoardPress. Their sanity in trying to do this can be questioned, but they sent me a copy of their first print magazine, which came out some months ago. Probably hoping I’d write something about them. It
Interview with Blue Montgomery Read More »
As I’ve written before, I have a lot of respect for how SPY has restructured and repositioned itself. There seems to be an alignment of their corporate culture and market positioning that not only has the potential to differentiate the brand (in their market), but to save money and increase the efficiency of the organization.
SPY’s Results for the Year and Some Thoughts on Their Market Position Read More »
Wow, this is going to be way shorter than most of my previous Billabong articles. Where’s the drama, the kind of hard to get your head around accounting, the recapitalizations and explanations thereof, the endless list of “significant items” I always complain about? Gone. Mostly. Well, not all the significant items. Billabong is implementing their
Billabong Turns a Profit; But There’s More Work to Do Read More »
You know, I always assumed/took for granted that skateboards you bought at Walmart or other large discount chains were not too good. I have to admit though that sometimes I thought to myself that maybe they weren’t a bad idea for a first deck if somebody was starting out. To be clear, I’m way too
Berrics Consumer Report Read More »
Kering, the owner of Volcom and Electric, presented its annual results for 2014 last week and held the usual conference call. As regular readers know, I was impressed at the job Volcom did selling itself to Kering (then PPR) both in terms of the price they achieved and their timing. The deal happened almost four
Kering’s Annual Report and Some Thoughts on Volcom’s Role. Read More »
You have heard me say from time to time that companies get into trouble due to denial and perseverance in a period of change. I’ve also noted that it’s typically not the founder or executive who’s been in charge for a long time who can fix the problems. Their perception of the organization, relationships with
The Abercrombie & Fitch Story. What Went Wrong? Read More »
The overall numbers for Deckers for the quarter look pretty good. But some of the comments left me a bit perplexed. Meanwhile, Sanuk is still not performing the way Deckers must have expected when they bought it. Overall Results In the quarter ended December 31, Deckers’ revenue rose 6.6% from $736 to $785 million. The
Deckers Has a Pretty Good Quarter. Sanuk, Not So Much. Read More »
In some recent speeches and articles, I’ve been highlighting the growing importance of mobile to brands and retailers. I thought I’d been pretty aggressive in suggesting how important it has become (and is increasingly becoming), but I think I’ve probably been understating the case. Now, I’ve stumbled (thank you fabled research department) on an article/presentation
Mobile! Mobile! Mobile! Read More »
You may recall that Intrawest got in an avalanche of unmanageable debt when the Great Recession took down the resort real estate market. They solved the problems of an unpayable interest bill by getting their primary debt holder to convert a big chunk of its debt to equity and taking Intrawest public. I wrote about
Intrawest’s Quarter; Business as Usual. Mostly In a Good Way Read More »