Those of you who read my stuff know I never try to be the first published. When Volcom did their press release I reviewed it. I listened to the conference call and read its transcript and thought about it. Then I reviewed their 10Q when it was finally released. Then I thought about it some more. Now, I’ve thought […]
Volcom’s Quarter Ended Sept. 30 and Some Strategic Industry Issues Read More »
At the moment you hear about it, it’s kind of a surprise. But when the initial shock passes, it’s not. I thought The Editors over at Boardistan put it best. Back in 2009, referring to ASR, they said; “We have to wonder what happens to the entire trade show business model when they have to pay retailers to
Requiem for the ASR Show. Now What? Read More »
I don’t think anybody else noticed this (or at least I didn’t see anybody else mention it) but on October 27th, Quik got a $20 million term loan from Bank of America. Along with some cash on hand, they used it to pay off the last $24.5 million (including accrued interest) of their original term loan
The End of an Era (In a Good Way!) at Quiksilver Read More »
On October 26th, Billabong Chairman Ted Kunkel and CEO Derek O’Neill made speeches at the company’s annual meeting. Together they only run to to seven pages of big, easy to read, type. You should read them, and you can read them here. There’s a lot of good, succinct information on why fiscal 2011 is a
Billabong’s Annual General Meeting Read More »
VF released its earnings and held the quarterly conference call yesterday at 8:30 Eastern time. I’m not quite dedicated enough to listen to it at 5:30 AM on the West coast, but I did listen to the replay later in the morning. You can see the press release here. Remember, we don’t have the SEC filing on the
Action Sports Market Evolution as Reflected in VF’s Quarterly Results Read More »
This 10K was filed a couple of weeks ago for the year ended July 31. There are about 760 ski areas in North America. Vail owns five major ones that accounted for 7.7% of skier visits (about six million) during the last season. We don’t get many chances to see individual data from many of them, so taking
Vail’s Annual Report; What’s the Future of Resort Real Estate? Read More »
Part of my weekend was spent reading Phil Jarratt’s excellent book, Salts and Suits; How a bunch of surf bums created a multi-billion dollar industry…and almost lost it. Phil has worked in surf publishing and the surf industry for more than 35 years, including five years as the head of marketing in Europe for Quiksilver. He seems
An Insider’s History of the Surf Industry; Good Reading! Read More »
I guess I should start by admitting that I’m not an expert on snowboard technology, and I don’t have a strong opinion (any opinion, actually) on which kind of camber is best and I don’t know who made which claim first. I also haven’t read, and don’t intend to read, the patents. I figure I
Never Summer’s and Mervin Manufacturing’s Little Patent Brouhaha Read More »
Normally, I prefer to wait for the actual quarterly filing to be available before doing this kind of analysis, but I trust you can all appreciate what a monumental waste of time it would be to really dig into Nike’s balance sheet. They’ve got $4.7 billion in cash and short term investments and $9.7 billion in
About a week ago, SIA published a really good article on why production costs in China are rising. If you haven’t read it you can, and should, here: http://www.snowsports.org/SuppliersServiceProviders/SIANewsletter/NewsletterDetail/Contentid/1272/#top. The article is pretty tactical in nature, and I thought a little bit of the longer term social and political perspective might be interesting to you.
SIA Article on the Rising Costs of Chinese Production Read More »