Entries by jeff

Pacific Sunwear’s Quarter; Look! It’s a Profit!

PacSun earned $948,000 in the quarter ended October 27 compared to a loss of $17.6 million in the same quarter last year. Their comparable store sales rose 1%. It’s the first time that’s happened since the third quarter of 2007. Their loss for nine months is $32.2 million compared to a loss of $68.3 million in nine months […]

Zumiez’s October 29 Quarter and a Strategic Observation

Zumiez reported sales growth during the quarter of 16.9% from $154 million to $180 million. Without the Blue Tomato acquisition, sales would have risen 11.7%. The gross profit margin fell from 38.9% to 37.3%. Selling, general and administrative expenses rose from $37.1 million to $45.7 million, or by 23.2%. As a percentage of sales, they rose from 24.1% to […]

Paul Naude Offers AUD 1.10, Billabong Reduces Full Year Forecast

This is just intriguing. There is so much happening and it’s going on so fast (at least in corporate terms). It’s like a novel you can’t put down or a soap opera where waiting for the next episode to find out who does what to whom is excruciating.  Like you, I’m working from the Billabong announcement and […]

Decker’s Quarter: The Issue is Not with Sanuk

The September 30 quarter (here’s the link to the 10Q) was not one of great happiness for Decker, the owner of UGG, Teva and, of special interest to us, Sanuk. But perhaps we should be interested in their other brands as well. Most of you who sell shoes and sandals are competing directly in the broader casual […]

Another Possible Retail Future

We’ve all been watching for a while now as online and brick and mortar retail have collided and converged. We know it’s here to stay and that there’s a lot of evolving left to do. None of us know what the end product will look like (though maybe it’s better to acknowledge that there is no end […]

SPY’s Quarter; Strategy and the View from the Balance Sheet.

About a hundred years ago, around 1998, I spent a year as one in a long line of people who believed in the Sims brand enough to try and get it some traction (Some of you who are reading this are smiling; some are laughing. At me or with me- who knows).  Sims benefitted from having […]

Paul Naude Explores Billabong Leveraged Buyout

I suppose you have all heard that Billabong Director and President of the Americas Paul Naude has stepped aside from his duties for six weeks to try and pull together a leveraged buyout of Billabong. You can see the Billabong announcement and the conditions under which he is working here at Billabong’s investor web site. It’s the […]