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WF FOOTPRINTS
HAPPENINGS, PEOPLE AND PLACES
361 DEGREES TO INVEST
MILLIONS IN NEW
CORPORATE CENTRE
Media in China have said sports
brand 361 Degrees has announced
plans to set up a new design and
research centre, as well as new
production facilities and sales offices on
a new site in its home city, Jinjiang in
Fujian Province.
Reports say the overall investment the
company will make in the new facilities
will be greater than $225 million.
A maker of shoes, clothing and
accessories, 361 Degrees focuses
particularly on shoes for tennis,
badminton, table tennis and basketball.
JD SEALS £20M
BLACKS DEAL
World Footwear
can confirm that UK
sportswear retailer JD Sports Fashion has
bought 290 of Blacks Leisure’s stores out
of administration for £20 million.
JD Sports bought the stores, which
trade under the Blacks and Millets
names, and the bulk of the rest of the
business immediately after Blacks
Leisure was put into administration.
Blacks had appointed KPMG as
administrator earlier as it admitted it
had failed to find an outright buyer after
putting itself up for sale following poor
trading. Blacks employed some 3,500
staff and it is understood they will keep
their jobs, but redundancies are thought
to be inevitable.
Its new owner said it will evaluate the
performance of each store before it
decides how many to close.
JD executive chairman Peter Cowgill
said he hopes to restore Blacks to its
profitable, market-leading position as it
rejuvenates the offer, closes loss-
making stores and makes cost savings.
The deal means that the stores, the
stock, and the brands including
Eurohike and Peter Storm will be
transferred to JD Sports but its debts of
more than £30 million will be scrapped.
JD said the deal would lead to a
“minor reduction” in earnings in the
year to January 28 but it anticipates the
following year’s figures will not be
materially affected.
FDRA SENDS OUT NEW
CALL ON AFFORDABLE
FOOTWEAR
Trade association Footwear Distrib-
utors and Retailers of America (FDRA)
has sent a letter to the US congress
urging its members to support the
Affordable Footwear Act (AFA). The new
letter, which coincides with the start of a
new congress session, echoes earlier
calls from the FDRA on the same subject.
The AFA would repeal a tax on
imported footwear that has been in
place in the US since the 1930s. It affects
more than 40% of footwear imports to
the US, including many athletic and
outdoor shoes. Originally put in place to
help protect domestic manufacturers,
the FDRA has said the tax is “outdated
and regressive”, because almost all of
the shoes sold in US stores now come
from outside the country.
FDRA president, Matt Priest, said in
the letter: “Today, 99% of the shoes sold
in the US come from overseas. This new
legislation would save American
shoppers over $2 billion as inflationary
costs are rising across the globe and the
tax is based on the price of the shoes.
Ironically, these tariff rates are higher
on lower-cost shoes, highly affecting
lower-income families.”
Duties vary depending on what the
shoe is made of and can be as high as
67.5% and have a dramatic impact on
the consumer price of a pair of shoes.
But if the Affordable Footwear Act has a
successful passage through congress,
the FDRA estimates that a resulting
shortfall in tax of $800 million a year
would be compensated for by extra
shoe sales of around $2 billion.
AEROSOLES PARENT
COMPANY TO LAY OFF 100
WORKERS
Move On, a Portuguese footwear
manufacturer with a troubled recent
history, has said it is preparing to lay off
around 100 of its workers.
Last year, India’s multinational group
Tata bought a controlling stake in Move
On, manufacturer of the Aerosoles
brand of shoes. An insolvency event at
previous parent company Investvar in
4
WORLD FOOTWEAR | MARCH/APRIL 2012
Footprints
ITALIAN SHOE BRANDS
BRAVE MOSCOW
Italian National Footwear Industry
Association ANCI led a delegation of
Italian footwear firms to the
Consumexpo consumer goods
exhibition in Moscow in January.
Following the withdrawal of funding
for Italy’s export promotions agency
last year, ANCI took over as
organiser of the Italian pavilion at
the event.
In total 51 Italian companies used
the event to present their spring-
summer 2012 collections and
previews
for
autumn-winter
2012–2013 to the Russian market,
which ANCI has said is one of the
most important for Italian footwear.
Russia is Italy’s fourth-biggest
footwear customer, having regained
the ground it lost in 2010 when it
slipped down to fifth place. Perform-
ance in the first nine months of 2011
showed growth of 21.6% in value
and of 16.3% in volume for exports
of shoes from Italy to Russia.
“Consumexpo has lived up to the
Italian footwear industry’s expect-
ations,” said ANCI chairman, Cleto
Sagripanti (above), after the event.
“The 51 companies attending the
exhibition met with highly qualified
selected dealers to define the fine
print of their last orders for spring-
summer and consolidate their
business relations.”
PHOTO CREDIT: MICAM