Glasses on the run Newsletter #20

Hi,

There were a number of interesting stories over the last couple of weeks. I hope you enjoy my selection below.

What was interesting in the business of running

Adidas is facing a daunting challenge, trying to get rid of its remaining stock of Yeezy shoes after it cut ties with Ye last year. It already announced that not selling the existing Yeezy inventory may have $1.3 billion impact on its revenue. What to do with that huge stock of shoes turns out to be a difficult problem to solve. Here are some of the options and here are some more.

Rihanna seems to have been wearing a pair of Salomon shoes during her Super Bowl Halftime show. The previous couple of newsletters I mentioned the StockX 2023 Current Culture Index, which quoted Salomon as the fastest growing brand on StockX last year. After such an endorsement from Rihanna that trend and the increasing appeal of Salomon as a lifestyle brand will no doubt continue.

Saucony - one of the top running brands - is another one expanding beyond the core running market. Its sales grew 25% during the fourth quarter to hit $505 million for the whole year. Wolverine (Saucony's parent company) CEO Brendan L. Hoffman making the point that "the highest priority for Saucony is to extend its reach beyond the core runner to everyday active and lifestyle consumers".

Brooks Running released a press release with some data about its 2022 annual results. It apparently had a successful year with revenues growing 6% for the year while with its direct-to-consumer (DTC) business growing 16%. Brooks is owned by Berkshire Hathaway and usually shares fairly limited information about its business performance beyond such press releases.

Finally, Michael Horvath announced he is stepping down from his post as Strava CEO. That was his second stint in the job, after departing the first time in 2013 for family reasons. Strava has been active with acquisitions (e.g. of Recover and more recently Fatmap) and with the development of its own product, so it will be interesting to see how things evolve when a new CEO is selected.

Thank you for reading,

Momchil

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