Billabong Chairman Ian Pollard and CEO Neil Fiske both spoke at the Billabong shareholder meeting on November 21. Billabong, like Skullcandy, is an acknowledged turnaround in process. Both are using the fact that the public markets designate them as such to approach their turnarounds in what I consider to be the right way. I would […]
Deckers, the owner of Sanuk, not to mention UGG and Teva, had a great quarter. Revenue rose 24.2% to $480.3 million from $386.7 million in last year’s quarter. The gross margin was up from 43.2% to 46.6%. The acquisition of their brand distributor in Germany and a decline in the cost of sheep skin had […]
I trust you’ve all been following this. Some companies in their conference calls are acknowledging that they’ve brought in some inventory early in case things go south in the negotiations. I would imagine that unions feel they have the most leverage now during the holiday shopping season. Most of you have product that arrives in […]
I love it when a plan starts to come together. Especially when it’s a plan I’ve endorsed and follows an approach I’ve been recommending for many companies since about 2008. As you know, I’ve been concerned that public companies have pressures on them to grow that make it hard to be brand builders because getting […]
Last time I wrote about SPY (see it here) in August, they had reported a quarter over quarter sales decline of 18.1% from $10 million to $8.2 million. They told us their largest retail sunglass customer had stopped carrying their brand in the quarter that ended June 30. But in that quarter’s 10Q they said […]
VF’s 10Q for the quarter ended September showed another strong result. You can see the 10Q here. However, as with recent quarters, the good news was pretty much limited to their outdoor and action sport segment (OAS). I want to talk a bit about what that might mean, but first, let’s lay out the numbers. […]
Lowe’s new in store service representatives won’t need bathroom breaks, vacations, or retirement account. They won’t get sick. Hell, you don’t even have to pay them a salary. And what’s even better, or maybe worse- I’m not quite sure- is that they may be able to help me find the esoteric piece of hardware I […]
Peak Resorts has filed to do an initial public offering again. Here’s the link to the new S1. They first filed back in April of 2011. After a serious of amendments to their S1 filing, they withdrew it due to poor market conditions for IPOs. I analyzed their situation and initial filing back in October […]
Thought you might be interested to see what’s happened to rents compared to average incomes in recent years. Take a look at this link. Anybody with kids trying to get started on their own probably won’t be surprised by this. While this is for all employees, I’m pretty sure it’s especially impactful on our target […]
Okay, I don’t precisely feel like Julius Caesar when he was stabbed by Brutus (Hey, at least his problems were over!). But I was initially kind of surprised by what my ever vigilant research department fed me from Nordstrom’s web site. I’ve written about the tough retail environment. Among the topics I’ve highlighted are how […]
