Outdoor financials: Amer Sports receives notification of change in shareholding, plus Garmin, Quiksilver.

Amer Sports receives notification of change in shareholding

Amer Sports Corporation has received information to the effect that the Danske Bank A/S Helsinki Branch’s share capital and voting rights of Amer Sports are still over one-twentieth due to derivative contract transaction agreements, which were completed on Dec. 18, 2008.



The Danske Bank A/S Helsinki Branch has completed derivative contract transaction agreements on Dec.18, 2008, that will, according to their current schemes, mature in February 2009. If materialized, the ownership of Danske Bank A/S’s Helsinki Branch will fall under one-twentieth no earlier than February 25, 2009.



The Danske Bank A/S Helsinki Branch owns still 7,000,000 shares, which represent 9.58 percent of the company’s share capital and voting rights.



Amer Sports capital consists of 73,045,551 shares in issue.

Garmin disputes DigiTimes article, sees weaker December

Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN) issued a press release disputing a December 22 DigiTimes report titled, “Garmin expects to ship 18 million GPS PNDs in 2008.” Garmin said in a press release that the story contains a number of inaccuracies in sales figures and product rollout schedules, though Garmin did not go into detail about the inaccuracies.

DigiTimes reported on its web site: “Garmin, due to better than originally expected sales performance in the North American market since the Black Friday weekend, estimates that its 2008 total sales volume of GPS PNDs will increase by 50 percent from 2007 to 18 million units, according to the company’s Asia Pacific marketing director Tony An. Click here to read the full DigiTimes article.

In the press release disputing the story, Kevin Rauckman, Garmin’s CFO and treasurer, said, “Black Friday sales from our customers were what we expected and gross margins remain relatively strong. However, the December sales environment is weaker, which we attribute to our retail customers’ desire to exit the year with lower levels of inventory.”

Garmin will update investors during its fourth quarter 2008 earnings call, scheduled for February 25, 2009.

Quiksilver narrows Q4 loss

Shed of its Rossignol business, Quiksilver (NYSE: ZQK) swung to a narrower loss in the fourth quarter as sales rose 3 percent and the company took a goodwill charge related to business in the Asia/Pacific region.

For the quarter ending Oct. 31, it lost $955,000, or $0.01 a share, compared to a loss of $110.9 million, or $0.89 a share, in the same period last year. Last year’s fourth quarter included a loss of $154.9 million for discontinuing operations.

The company’s results for the current quarter include goodwill charges of $65.4 million related to its businesses. It also includes an unanticipated tax benefit of $4.6 million, or $0.04 a share.

Excluding the one-time items, the company said its adjusted income was $41.6 million, or $0.32 a share.

Revenue rose 3 percent to $606.9 million.

For the full year, the company said it lost $226.3 million, or $1.80 a share. That was up from a loss of $121.1 million, or $0.98 a share in the same period last year.

The company completed the sale of the Rossignol Group in November and sold the Roger Cleveland Golf Company in December 2007. It said both of those businesses are treated as discontinued operations and the company expects to recognize a non-cash loss of about $150 million in the first fiscal quarter of 2009 associated with the sale of Rossignol.

–Compiled by Wendy Geister



For more information about any public company on this page or its financial reports, as well as to view stock prices updated every 15 minutes, visit the SNEWS® Stock Market Updates. Click on: www.outsidebusinessjournal.com/cgi-bin/snews/stock_report.html.