Wolverine Worldwide stable as it goes through restructuring

By

Olivier Guyot

Published
Jul 22, 2015

In the thick of strategic changes, the Wolverine Worldwide group has posted very stable numbers. The American footwear group (Saucony, Merrell, Sperry Top-Sider, Keds, Sebago…) has reported a 2.7% increase, or 630 million dollars, to be exact, for its second quarter ended 20 June.

Like all of the international players, it was also subject to the fluctuations in exchange rates. Before customs and on a comparable scale (the group no longer counts Patagonia among its brands, which generated 11.6 million dollars for the group last year), it shows a growth of 6.9%.

For the North America zone, its revenue went up 0.6% and 1.3% before exchanges. For the Middle East, the group saw a 1.4% decrease, but once exchanged into dollars the growth was 10%. Likewise in Latin America, growth was at 5.1% but the conversion brought it down to a decrease of 1.4%.

Asia, though, is clearly the Promised Land here, with a 55% hike in its revenue for the zone (56.9% before exchanges). The group doesn't break down the numbers region.

It does, however, give the numbers for each of its different segments. Lifestyle, its biggest, dropped 4.1% to 253 million dollars. But, Performance went up 5.7% to nearly 223 million and Heritage jumped 12.2% to more than 127 million.

Even though its revenue is showing great progress, the group has to adapt to eroding margins. Thus, its operating result dropped from 49 to 47.6 million dollars for the period. And its net income fell from 27.6 to 25.2 million dollars.

The group has also announced it is discontinuing the Cushe brand, its smallest entity, and the reorganisation of its activity in Canada to streamline operations, further realize synergies and drive growth in this important market. This initiative was launched this past quarter and is expected to conclude by mid-2016.