Did you hear?… Possible sale of Teva footwear license

Deckers has been selling its Teva line of sports sandals and other footwear since 1985 under various exclusive licensing arrangements with Mark Thatcher, the inventor of the Teva sport sandal and owner of the Teva patents and trademark. Following a rather — how shall we call it? — spirited renegotiation, a new exclusive footwear license was signed with Thatcher in June 1999. That agreement became effective Jan. 1, 2000 and continues through Dec. 31, 2004. The long and short of that nifty agreement is that Deckers realizes the performance obligations of $107.9 million in sales for 2004 is highly unlikely, especially considering the company managed a respectable, but significantly lower sales number of $61.2 million for 2001. Currently both sides are in negotiations and SNEWS® has learned that, if all goes well, Thatcher will sell the license of Teva footwear outright to Deckers. SNEWS® View: Though neither side was willing to talk on the record, SNEWS® believes that a sale is likely by the end of the third quarter this year. If that happens, Thatcher stands to make $60 million and Deckers will own the brand outright. Experts close to the deal as well as analysts we spoke with told SNEWS® that it wasn’t in either party’s best interests to either delay or kill the deal. Thatcher needs Deckers as much as Deckers needs Teva. Without Teva, Deckers will be a Simple company (pun intended) relying on the growth of Ugg sales to remain viable to investors. With the sale, they can assert control and begin to move forward without fear of price/contract renegotiations and the worry of losing a brand that is the foundation of their company.