Skullcandy’s Quarterly and Annual Results and A Look at Their Strategic Bets

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I’m working from the press release and conference call because it takes a while for the full year annual report to be released. But don’t worry; when it does come out I’ll go through it just to make sure something interesting didn’t get missed. 

Strategy and the Bets They are Placing
 
Strategy is always way more interesting than numbers and accounting, so let’s start with this quote from the press release.
 
“Skullcandy became the world’s most distinct audio brand by bringing color, character and performance to an otherwise monochromatic space; revolutionizing the audio arena by introducing headphones, ear buds and other audio and wireless lifestyle products that possess unmistakable style and exceptional performance.”
 
I guess we all kind of knew that. In terms of color, character and style they certainly did it and the challenge is to stay in the lead. In terms of exceptional performance, they are clearly working on it, but no doubt they’d acknowledge that the competition is pretty tough.
 
What are the bets they are placing to achieve these strategies?
 
“On the product development side, we continue to transition to a full in-house model where we originate and control our product design and development process. We believe this is critical to our long-term strategy of developing a steady stream of high-quality performance products and innovations that cater to a targeted audience.”
 
We all know you can’t go to China, pick some headphones off the wall, put your own graphics and packaging on them, and be a performance leader.
 
Next, “Partnering with elite athletes and musicians continues to be an important part of our marketing strategy; however, in keeping with our evolved brand positioning, we have consolidated the number of sponsored athletes from 170 down to 60, with a focus on the best athletes in our key categories, including NBA MVP Derrick Rose and All-Star Kevin Durant, in addition to a slew of athletes to be announced soon.”
 
I’ve always thought that focusing on a smaller group of higher quality sponsorship relationships made more sense than a larger number of less influential ones, though I guess we’ll have to wait and see how big this new “slew” is. A slew sounds like a lot.
 
Third, “…by the end of the fourth quarter approximately 40% of our units produced were dual sourced from more than one factory in China, and we remain on track to meet our goal to be more than 80% dual sourced by the end of 2012. Dual sourcing mitigates supply risk, leverages the best possible suppliers across the industry and helps us negotiate better pricing.”
 
I don’t know if it’s strategic exactly, but it’s sure as hell financial common sense.
 
Here’s numbers four.
 
“Sales to our top-10 domestic customers increased 23% and accounted for approximately 48% of sales versus 51% of sales last year. “
 
As I’ve said, they are betting they can continuously be cool in Fred Meyers, Best Buy, and similar retail outlets. That may be the biggest company bet of all, and they are doing a few things to support it.
 
They’ve got new packaging coming out. They are doing some displays that let the customers listen to the product. Intriguingly, they are educating some of these big box retailers (probably all of them) “…helping them understand that with a lifestyle brand, where we tell a story and provide a listening experience, we see a meaningful lift in revenues.” CEO Jeremy Andrus notes that, “…we saw a lift anywhere from 1.5 to 2.5 times sell through on those listening stations.”
 
I would like to remind everybody that in statistics, correlation does not equal causality. That is, maybe the people who are prepared to take the action of listening are already predisposed to buy. I don’t know that, but I bet nobody at Skullcandy can prove me wrong. It’s possible that it wasn’t the act of listening that improved sales. That’s not criticism of Skullcandy, but a reminder to all of us that we love to interpret statistics in ways that fit our desired outcomes. 
 
But still, I think Skull management is on to something when they try to get big box managers to understand that coolness can grow revenues.   
 
And last but not least, “ASPs [average selling price] increased double digits in the fourth quarter.” They are counting on being cool and improving product performance to allow them to get more dollars per customer and, as they did in the fourth quarter, raising that ASP.
 
Those, then, are the five things I’d evaluate as I consider Skullcandy’s prospects.
 
The Numbers
 
Let’s start by giving you the GAAP numbers, and then we’ll talk a bit about some subtleties.
 
Sales for the quarter ended December 31 were up 29% from $64.6 million to $83.4 million compared to the same quarter a year ago. The gross profit percentage fell from 56% to 50%. Selling, general and administrative expenses (SG&A) fell from $37.4 million to $21.2 million or from 57.9% of sales to 25.4% of sales.
 
Sales for the quarter were up 27% domestically, 10.8% internationally, and 73% online. The lower gross margin “…was the result of a shift in sales mix to certain products that carry temporarily lower gross margins and inventory acquired at a higher cost basis in the acquisition of Kungsbacka 57 AB and the transition to a direct model in Europe. The Company anticipates gross margin increasing on a full-year basis in 2012, as new sourcing initiatives and a higher mix of direct international sales are expected to benefit gross margin.”
 
The big decline in SG&A was largely due to $20.4 million in management incentive bonuses and compensation expense in the same quarter last year.     
 
Operating income rose from a loss of $1.2 million to a profit of $20.4 million. Other expense went from almost $7 million to next to nothing. But income taxes paid rose from a credit of $234,000 to $8 million. Net income was $12.3 million compared to a loss of $9.7 million in the same quarter last year.
 
Sales for the year rose 45% from $160.6 million to $232.5 million. Units sold and average selling price both increased “double digits” during the year. The gross profit percentage fell to 49.7% from 53.2% the previous year. Selling, general and administrative expense was up from $67.6 million to $72.4 million, but declined as a percentage of sales from 42.1% to 31.6%. Net income was $18.6 million compared to a loss of $9.7 million the previous year.
 
The balance sheet sure looks better. A year ago, before the public offering, they had a negative equity of $22.4 million. This year at December 31, it was a positive $106.8 million. Receivables, interestingly, have gone up over the year only from $46.7 million to $50.6 million. Pretty damn good given the sales growth.
 
Inventories over the year almost doubled, from $22.6 million to $44 million. But they note that much of the increase came from the acquisition of Astro Gaming and their former European distributor’s inventory. Ignoring acquisitions it grew, they say, only a bit faster than sales growth.
 
They also make the interesting comment that their products “…contain very little obsolescence risk.” That makes sense to me though you might ask if it remains true as they bring out better technology.
 
CEO Andrus also told us in the conference call that, “…we’re really not adding a significant number of new doors, and that’s been the case certainly in 2011, and that will be the same in 2012 as well.” Growth, in other words, won’t be from expanded distribution, but from more sales in existing accounts.
 
I’ve already discussed above a few of the things they’re doing to accomplish that. CEO Andrus notes that in Europe, “The one thing that I would note in terms of our strategy that will have some effect is that we’re really focused on some level of auditing of our retail partners, some consolidation where we feel there are doors that aren’t as good as others, and then on a new fixturing program which will roll out in Europe sometime during the summer.”
 
Skullcandy is trying to represent and merchandise their products in big box retailers using some of the techniques and approaches- vibe, if you will- that you might find in specialty shops. They are asking those retailers, and trying to educate them, to approach merchandising the Skullcandy brand in a way that’s different from how they’ve approached any of the other brands they carry.
 
Maybe that’s strategic bet number six, and it’s sure interesting to watch.     
   
 

 

 

Update on Billabong: The TPG Offer

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This is kind of fun. As you’re aware, TPG Capital offered to buy all of Billabong for $3 a share before the Nixon deal and other steps were announced. Billabong said no because the deal was contingent on too many things and they needed an immediate, certain solution to their short term balance sheet issue. But now, even with the Nixon deal happening, TPG still wants to buy them for $3.00 a share. What can we learn from that?

First, I guess we can conclude that TPG approves of the actions Billabong management has taken. And apparently they agree with Billabong management that the earnings lost from the sale of half of Nixon will be made up for by store closings and expense reductions being undertaken.

Or maybe the $3.00 a share was a lowball offer made on the assumption that Billabong needed to make a deal (which they did).
 
In what I published about Billabong yesterday, I said okay, great, they’ve solved their short term balance sheet problem, but we are left knowing almost nothing about how Billabong management views the prospects for their longer term vertical retail strategy. I guess we’re about to find something out.
 
If Billabong’s board of directors were to conclude that it’s in the shareholders’ best interest to sell the company for $3 a share (Or $4?) we’d have to conclude they aren’t all that confident in the strategy and their ability to implement it either because of anticipated economic conditions or because their balance sheet, even with the fix of a few days ago, won’t be strong enough.
 
Then there’s the issue of the whole competitive environment in the surf/action sports/youth culture market. I’m actually working on a longer think piece on this. My basic question (perhaps a bit exaggerated for impact) is with everybody trying to respond to weak consumer demand by selling everything they can everywhere (perhaps the wrong approach?) is there enough brand distinctiveness left to make a plaid shirt from a cool brand worth $20 more than the same plaid shirt bought at Target?
 
I remember when the skate hard goods industry was somehow caught by surprise as more and more skaters decided that a $30 deck was just as good as a $55 deck as they were essentially identical in construction and were going to wear out anyway.
 
Just because there’s an offer from TPG doesn’t mean there will be a deal. It is a very preliminary offer with a lot of work to be done. One thing that might be a stopper is the condition that the tax liability associated with the Nixon transaction not be higher than $10 million. Billabong has estimated that, at worst, it might be $45 million. I doubt they’d be willing to guarantee the $10 million number.
 
Somebody (thanks Somebody) sent me this article which discusses the deal in some detail. It’s worth a read. I’ll be watching with you to see how this all plays out.
 

 

 

Billabong’s Announcement: Short Term Solution, Longer Term Question.

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With last Thursday’s announcement, Billabong has moved to address its balance sheet issues. But, to paraphrase one of the analysts in the conference call, "This is all well and good, but how do we know we won’t be discussing the same issue a year from now?"

Let’s look at the steps Billabong took and its half yearly numbers. Then we’ll talk about Billabong’s longer term strategy and see if there’s an answer to the analyst’s concern in there somewhere..
How Did We Get Here?
Billabong is suffering from a strong Australian dollar, a weak world economy that hasn’t recovered as quickly as they expected, an aggressive, opportunistic retail strategy, and having paid what looks in the ever perfect hindsight to be a bit much for some of their acquisitions. Of course, if the economy wasn’t so weak and the Australian dollar so strong, the last two might not be such an issue. But we are where we are.
Billabong announced back on December 11 that its “…sales growth trend has deteriorated significantly…” in November and the first part of December. They indicated they were concerned about their level of debt and violating their loan covenants. I wrote about that in some detail here. Last Thursday, before their announcement, I described briefly what I thought their choices were.
What Have They Done?
First, they sold 48.5% of Nixon to Trilantic Capital Partners (TCP).   They are keeping 48.5% themselves. Nixon management will own the other 3%. They expect to raise US$285 million, all of which will be used to pay down debt. That solves the immediate balance sheet issue, reducing net debt at December 31 from $527 million Australian dollars to $259 million Australian dollars on a proforma basis.
Because Billabong now owns less than half of Nixon, Nixon will no longer be consolidated on Billabong’s financial statements. That is, its assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses will no longer flow through them and Billabong won’t be responsible. I think what will happen (at least it’s what would happen here) is that Billabong’s share of Nixon’s income will be included on Billabong’s income statement under “Other Income.”  
Nixon product will continue to be sold in Billabong owned retail. Billabong has signed a long term supply agreement with Nixon (no details available) to insure that. The TCP group may be really nice people, but I’m guessing they’d like Nixon to make as much money as possible. So I assume that the prices at which they sell Nixon product to Billabong will be consistent with prices to other retailers. Billabong, under those circumstances, will just get a normal retail margin on their sale of Nixon product.
Most intriguing to me is what TCP’s plans for Nixon might be. There were some comments in the public material and the conference call about Nixon already being distributed outside of Billabong’s traditional channels. The release says, “Nixon will be a stand-alone business focused on continued growth into areas such as Billabong’s core action sports channels, as well as high-end department stores, quality electronics stores and other channels.”
Hmmm. Does that sound to anybody besides me a bit like the Skullcandy strategy? Nixon is doing headphones already. It occurs to me that Billabong might not have been able to finance Nixon’s growth opportunities. Untying Nixon from Billabong may benefit it.
Billabong bought Nixon for $55 million in 2006 plus a deferred payment of US$76 million. The transaction values Nixon at around US$464 million so Billabong will report a one-time gain on the transaction (size unknown) at the end of their fiscal year.
Second, they are going to close between 100 and 150 of the 677 company owned stores by June 30, 3013. They think that once this process is complete, they will have reduced rent expense by $20 to $30 million Australian dollars and will increase EBITDA by $5 to $10 million Australian dollars in the year ending June 30, 2013. They noted that they had closed 30 stores in the last six months.
Third, they’ve got a program to reduce annual costs by $30 million Australian dollars. These cuts will be across the board. There will be about 400 full time jobs lost including 80 in Australia. I’d be interested to know how many of the 400 will be the result of closing stores.
Finally, Billabong is going to reduce its dividend payments.
The net of all this, according to Billabong management, is that the loss of Nixon’s earnings “…will be more than offset…” by Billabong’s share of profits from the Nixon joint venture along with the other expense reductions.
The Six Months Results
Here are the income statement numbers in Australian dollars for the six months ended December 31, 2011.
Sales rose 1.5% to $850 million dollars compared to the prior calendar period. Constant currency revenues were up 6.3%, but down 2% excluding the impact of acquisitions. Over two years, Billabong has seen the translated value of its profits from Europe decline by 40% because of the decline in the value of the Euro against the Australian dollar.
The cost of goods sold stayed almost constant at $455 million, but the gross profit margin fell from 54.4% to 53.4%. Selling, general and administrative expenses were up 10.4% to $316 million. Other expenses and finance costs were more or less the same. There was a $15 million impairment charge for Billabong’s South African operations.
Profit for the six months fell to $16 million from $57 million in the same six months the previous year.
What happened? CEO Derek O’Neill, in his presentation, sites four challenges. First, sales were lower than expected in November and early December in Europe and Australia. Second, they couldn’t recover all their higher product costs in a “…highly price sensitive retail environment.”
Third, there was a lot of discounting going on at both wholesale and retail in Australia and Europe. It wasn’t as bad in the U.S., but it was still there. Fourth, add on to that aggressive clearance of inventory, which obviously kills your margins, and you can see why it wasn’t a great six months.
You can see in their balance sheet some of the issues I’ve discussed above. Inventories have risen $56 million from a year ago even though sales aren’t up significantly and accounts for the whole rise in current assets. Trade and other payables have risen $40 million over a year ago and accounts for the whole rise in current liabilities. Long term borrowings rose from $570 million to $701 million, reflecting a decline in deferred payments (partly for acquisitions) from $188 million to $86 million. The interest coverage ratio has fallen from 8.8 to 4.2 times.
Tactics and Strategy
We’ve reviewed Billabong’s half year results, seen how they got themselves in a bit of a hole, and outlined the tactics they’ve used to resolve their immediate balance sheet issues. Given their circumstances and the choices they had, what they are doing seems appropriate to me.
But it doesn’t address that inconvenient analyst question: “How do we know we won’t be here a year from now discussing the same thing?”
Billabong’s strategy, we all know, has been to expand their owned retail to increase penetration of their brand portfolio and benefit from the vertical margin.  Pretty simple to state. I thought it was a good strategy when they started it though, as I wrote at the time, I was unsure about the West 49 deal. But the devil’s in the details. Let me quote what I wrote last Thursday.
“How much of your owned brands can you put in a retailer before it’s perceived as a Billabong store regardless of the name on the front? How do you handle the other brands those owned stores carry when you’re trying to make room for your own higher margins brands?   How do they feel, as one of those non-owned brands, about being in those stores and the way their brand may be merchandised? I am sure Billabong management spent, and is spending, time on those issues every day.”
That, to me, is the heart of the strategic issue and we came away from the public documents and conference call with basically no insight into how the implementation of this central, long term strategy is going. That analyst’s question kind of implied it, but the answer wasn’t very helpful. To be fair, I can’t really expect Billabong management to just drop their drawers for their competitors in an open forum, but it is still the central issue given that direct to consumer now accounts for 49% of Billabong’s revenues.
One paragraph of one slide from CEO O’Neill’s presentation gave us a bit of information. We learned that Billabong family brand share is now about 37% in West 49 stores compared to 15% at the time of acquisition. It was 32% at June 30, 2011.
The owned brand share is 38% in the acquired SDS banner, and close to 50% in the acquired Rush store. We don’t have any information as to what it was when the deals closed.
That’s it. That’s all I know for sure about the major strategic bet that Billabong has placed. How far can we expect those percentages to rise? Any perceived blowback from consumers yet? How have other brands reacted? Did Billabong just get ahead of itself in an economic environment it misjudged and commit a one-time balance sheet faux pas? Or is the strategy dependent on improved economic growth? If so, and we don’t get that growth, what happens?
I don’t expect to ever get quality answers to those questions unless I fly to Australia and drag those guys into a bar. In the meantime, I invite you all to review at Billabong’s investor site the documents I’ve referred to in this article, and see if you can figure the answers out. 

 

 

Billabong’s Upcoming Half Year Report and Their Choices

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Sometime late afternoon West Coast time, Billabong is going to release their half yearly numbers and have a conference call on those results. In the meantime, as most of you may know, trading on their stock has been suspended pending an announcement. That announcement may have something to do with this article stating that Billabong has received a US $820 million takeover offer from TPG Capital.

All I know is what’s in the article. But I thought in light of the pending news and possible acquisition of Billabong, it might be useful to review their choices before the announcement.

Back in December, when Billabong announced that they had some issues and were pursuing a review of their options, I did a pretty detailed analysis about what was going on. You can read that here. We haven’t seen a complete balance sheet, so we don’t know the extent of the problem. But when you’re dealing with issues of capital adequacy, there are only so many things you can do. In no particular order, here they are.
 
You can raise some expensive money along the lines of what Quiksilver did with Rhone.
 
You can sell the company as the article referenced above suggests might happen.
 
The trouble with both these choices, of course, is you don’t get a very good price. But then you may not have a choice.
 
You can cut expenses across the board to improve cash flow. What we don’t know, since we don’t know the exact size of the problem, is whether this could have enough impact quickly enough. My guess is no. And of course, this has an adverse effect on the company’s ability to pursue its strategy.
 
You could sell a brand. But Billabong’s whole strategy is focused on putting those brands into their growing retail channels. So every brand less it has makes that strategy a bit less valid.
 
Maybe it could take one of those strong brands it owns public to raise capital. That way they wouldn’t lose control of the brand. But as I am sure you all know it’s a tough time to take a company public. Somebody suggested that alternative to me. Wish I’d thought of it myself.
 
In a few hours, we’ll be able to put some numbers on the problem size, and maybe the solutions will have been announced. But let’s review quickly, in the interest of making the article I’ll write when the report and conference call happen shorter than a novel, how they got here.
 
First of all, the Australian dollar got strong, and the worldwide economy weakened, with the Australian economy being the last to follow others into recession. You can’t blame Billabong for that, but they have to manage the consequences.
 
Second, they chose to purchase West 49 because, well, it was available and consistent with their strategy. Had it not appeared on their radar screen, I don’t think they would have been pursuing an acquisition of that size with its issues. And, as I’ve written, I think those issues turned out to be worse that Billabong management expected.
 
Third (and this is true for most of us) there was an expectation of more of a global recovery than happened.  One consequence is that the acquisitions they have made start to look expensive in light of our current economic reality. That is, the prices are harder to justify because the future cash flows don’t look as strong. This impacts the company’s value as Billabong looks for solutions to its debt/cash flow problem.
 
And finally there’s the issue of whether or not the strategy of putting owned brands into an expanded, owned, retail base made sense.  I thought it did (though I wasn’t particularly happy about the implied impact on specialty retailers).
 
But, as I discussed a long time ago, the devil of that strategy’s implementation was in the details. How much of your owned brands can you put in a retailer before it’s perceived as a Billabong store regardless of the name on the front? How do you handle the other brands those owned stores carry when you’re trying to make room for your own higher margins brands?   How do they feel, as one of those non-owned brands, about being in those stores and the way your brand may be merchandised? I am sure Billabong management spent, and is spending, time on those issues every day.
 
If the economy hadn’t gone quite so far south or had recovered a bit quicker and the Australian dollar wasn’t through the moon would things be okay? That would depend on facts I don’t have. When we get Billabong’s numbers, we aren’t going to be able to conclude that the strategy was “good” or “bad.” All we’ll know and I guess we know it right now, is that they ran out of time to pursue it as their balance sheet weakened.
 
I’ll be all over Billabong’s report the minute it comes out, but I do like to read stuff slowly and take some time to think about it, so be patient with me.

 

 

Notes on SIA’s Denver Show and Thoughts on the Trade Show Slog

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It was nice to walk to the Snow Show the second day when it was actually snowing. I think I’m completely acclimated to Denver, though I do miss playing blackjack with friends. And I still get confused when one of the people who works at the convention center says, "How are you today, sir? Have a nice day and enjoy the show." They actually seem to mean it. After so many years in Las Vegas, you can understand why I’d be startled.

Inside the convention center, the thing I heard most often was "I’ve got to leave for ISPO tomorrow." This was typically spoken by somebody with a resigned tone to their voice and slumped shoulders. It often included phrases like "Six shows down, two to go!" or "I don’t remember what my children look like."

The more things change, the more they stay the same. I wrote about the trade show schedule back in 2002 and much of the article has held up pretty well.  People complain about the trade shows and the schedule, but they all go. I’ll get back to that after mentioning a related issue.
 
Trade Shows and Outerwear
  
The related issue is that there seem to be mighty few snowboard industry companies that aren’t making snowboard outerwear.   Seems like all the hard goods companies are making apparel and many of the apparel companies are making hard goods. I suppose the logic of becoming a full line company is irresistible. "Well, we’re already selling them product X, so as long as we’re in front of them, and it’s consistent with our image as a snowboard company, we might as well sell them product Y."
 
Retailers, of course, already can’t/don’t/won’t carry more than a fraction of a large brand’s line, and I doubt that a brand expanding its product line will change that. Lacking some market growth, it’s just more good quality product that lacks fundamental product differentiation chasing the same customers. The scramble for market share and a source of growth continues. It’s not that there’s no innovation in the snow industry, but whatever advantage it confers doesn’t last long, as innovations are copied across the industry in about one season.
 
Who might be the winners of the rush to do outerwear? I think it might be companies like Arbor and Never Summer who, I’m pretty certain, won’t be doing outerwear.  I’m only half kidding when I suggest that companies like those may find their market positions strengthened and better defined as a result of all the other companies doing full snow product lines. Maybe I’m not kidding at all.
 
Let’s get back to trade shows. So you’ve expanded your product line. You’d probably like to sell some of this new product. This might require some new customers unless your existing ones are extraordinarily cooperative. How do you find those new customers if, as I’m suggesting, your existing retailers may not automatically just order your new stuff and throw out your competitors?
 
 Maybe by attending some new trade shows? If, for example, you’re in the snowboard business and make outerwear, going to Outdoor Retailer probably makes sense. Lots of people seemed to think so at any rate. But there’s diminishing return from going to more and more shows given the inevitable overlap in customers. We also need to remember that larger brands especially are seeing customers more and more outside of the trade show environment.
 
 Where going to all the related trade shows can probably makes sense is when you’re a new brand- especially one not limited to the snowboard or winter sports business.   The sock brand Stance comes to mind as a company that could benefit from extra trade shows. John, Ryan, hope you’re having a good time in Munich, or wherever the hell you are now. More coffee, less beer!
  
To summarize what I might have said in the last four or five paragraphs, the decision to expand a product line, with particular focus in this case on outerwear in the snowboard industry, is made at least partly with the expectation of expanding your market beyond the core snowboard niche. Especially as a larger company, and even more as a public company, you know (at least I hope you know) that the growth you can reasonably expect in the snowboard market probably doesn’t justify the effort and expense of creating and marketing an outerwear line. So you’re off to various other trade shows that have retailers who, to a greater or lesser degree, overlap snowboarding and you’ll look for some growth there.
 
And those dynamics are at least partly the reason why we’re so willing to go to so many shows.
 
Things I Noticed at SIA
  
I guess I’ve talked enough about everybody making outerwear, so let’s move on.
 
 I loved the 686 concept car, though I was disappointed to learn it’s probably not street legal. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to look for another ride.
  
There was some talk about booths getting bigger again. Mostly from people like me who remember the two story Morrow booth with the helicopter on top at the absolute peak of the snowboard madness in probably 1995. The concern is that we’re getting profligate in spending on booths again.
  
I had a different take. While there did seem to be some size expansion, I saw a lot of less expensive soft sided booths and many of the booths reused the same components and materials they had used in previous years. Still, if one of you guys wants to put a main battle tank or maybe a small, temperature controlled, enclosed hill where you make artificial snow in your booth that would be okay with me.
  
The Mervin Manufacturing surf boards. Behind Mike Olson’s always smiling, happy go lucky, endlessly positive, demeanor is a guy who’s always smiling, happy go lucky, and endlessly positive. However, he’s also a guy who knows a thing or two about materials and manufacturing. He’s been working on surfboards for a long time, and if he’s ready to sell these I’m pretty sure it makes good business sense. This is going to be fun to watch. I hope the guys at Quiksilver, who owns Mervin, are as excited as I am.
  
I really liked the Recon system that installs in specially adapted goggles made by goggle brands. They have a built in computer that connects to GPS and shows you where you are on the mountain, how fast you’re going, and how high you jumped. It also gives you access to your phone, music and other functions. You wear a little control module on your wrist, but view it through a small screen below your right eye in the goggles. It does not interfere with your view.
 
It looks like it will take a bit of training to use it well, and some people may just not want to be quite that connected while on the mountain. But it also makes sense for other markets, and I suspect in some form it’s a piece of the future.
  
Then of course there was seeing former and long time- very, very long time- Burton senior executive Clark Gundlach over at the Quiksilver booth where he’s now in charge of the company’s snowboard program. Of course I knew the change had happened, but it still felt almost odd to see him there. Proof, I guess, that nothing is forever. Probably felt a bit odd for Clark too.
  
But when you think about it though, who else was Quik going to hire if they are serious about building their snowboard business? You can kind of imagine the conversation at Quiksilver. “Hey, we need an executive who has mountains of experience in all aspects of building a successful snowboard program in a large company environment. Let’s make a list of possible candidates.” Short list.
  
We came to the SIA show this year disappointed in the snow, though we got a storm the previous week and things seem to be picking up. SIA reported that sales through December were $2.2 billion, just 2% below last year’s record sales. Unit sales fell 10%, showing some discounting, and specialty store inventories were, inevitably, up 16%. Still, that’s not as bad as I feared it might be, and it’s definitely recoverable with improved snow conditions.
  
I want to point out that it would be a lot worse and not necessarily recoverable if, as an industry, we weren’t doing a much better job controlling our inventories. Keep up the good work.
  
Well, I’m home with no more trade shows on my horizon. The kids didn’t miss me because one’s away at college and the other is living on his own and has A  REAL JOB! My wife claims to miss me, but it may because I do most of the cooking. The cats definitely miss me.
  
Hope you all have a good trade show season.