Phoenix Footwear Group, Inc. said Tactical Holdings Inc. had paid $14.3 million, or the bulk of the price it agreed to pay for Phoenix's Altama Delta division. Phoenix agreed to sell the military footwear divison to Tractical in December 2007 as part of its plan to pay down debt and focus on remaining footwear and accesories brands.
“The successful closing of the Altama transaction was an important milestone towards our stated goal of improving our capital structure, and today's funding finalizes those efforts,” said James Riedman, Phoenix Footwear's Chairman. “Additionally, we recently have received several proposals from lenders and are working on a new revolving facility to fund our normalized seasonal working capital needs. In the near term, we expect to receive additional cash tax refunds related to the net tax effects of the Altama and Royal Robbins transactions. We are pleased with the progress we have made so far on the restructuring of our balance sheet and will continue to focus on aggressively growing our brands.”
Cathy Taylor, Phoenix Footwear's CEO, added, “In a relatively short time, we have repositioned a number of key brands and product lines, strengthened the balance sheet of the company, hired or promoted a number of key organizational resources, and stabilized our overall operational and executional capabilities. We believe that we are well positioned for growth in 2008 and I look forward to working with the strong organization we are developing to continue building a profitable business we will all be proud to be part of.”
