Outdoor financials: Jarden’s outdoor sales up, but lagged in 4Q; plus Puma earnings beat expectations

Jarden Corp. (NYSE:JAH), parent company of Marmot, K2, Coleman and ExOfficio brands saw its outdoor sales gain in fourth quarter 2011, but the segment lagged overall company revenue growth and could weaken further in early 2012 due to the warm winter, officials said.

The Rye, N.Y.-based diversified consumer product company reported $614.5 million in outdoor sales for the fourth quarter, up 1.7 percent compared to $604 million during the same period a year ago. The brighter spot was the segment’s operating income, which came in at $39.1 million, up nearly 75 percent from $22.4 million a year ago.

Companywide, Jarden saw its quarterly revenue rise 3 percent to $1.74 billion, compared to the same period a year ago. Net income came in at $21.1 million, or 24 cents per diluted share, slowing from a net income of $46.7 million, or 52 cents per diluted share a year ago.

“In our wintersports businesses, K2 and Marker and Völkl which benefited from strong early orders in Q3 as retailers replenished low inventory levels from the strong 2010 and ‘11 winter season were modestly impacted by the unseasonably warm start to the winter in Q4 across the US and Europe,” officials said in the company’s conference call following the earnings release Wednesday. “The selling period occurs primarily in February and March, but as noted earlier, we currently forecast this year-over-year impact to be 5 percent to 10 percent reduction in winter sports sales between 2011 and 2012.”

Overall, officials said they estimate the warm winter will negatively impact outdoor sales by $30 to $50 million in 2012.

For the full year 2011, outdoor kept pace with Jarden’s overall growth, rising 10.1 percent to $2.77 billion, versus overall company growth of 11 percent to $6.7 billion. Outdoor accounted for 43 percent of Jarden’s total sales in 2011.

Puma beats 4Q expectations, projects further growth for 2012/13

Despite the European debt crisis, German sportswear and footwear giant Puma continued to see impressive growth to close out 2011, beating its own and analysts’ expectations.

Puma increased its sales by 15.6 percent to EUR 720 million ($942.8 million as of Feb. 15) and its net income climbed 14 percent to EUR 230.1 million ($301.3 million).

Sales rose worldwide — up 8.3 percent in Europe, 27.8 percent in the Americas, and 11.4 percent in Asia.

Looking ahead, company officials project Puma sales to grow by high single-digit percentages in 2012 and 2013, along with mid single-digit percentage growth in net incomes.

For the full year 2011, Puma surpassed its revenue goal with just over EUR 3 billion ($3.9 billion) in sales, equaling 12.1 percent growth, and officials put forth a revenue goal of EUR 4 billion ($5.2 billion) for 2015.

–Complied by David Clucas