Easton Bell Sports management hosted a conference call to discuss the integration of the two companies and give more details on sales results last week. The 80.1% overall sales growth for the third quarter was primarily attributed to the acquisition of Easton Sports earlier this year, but EBS also reported 20.1% organic growth for the quarter, which was driven by increases in “all brands and all categories.”
Both the cycling and snow helmet categories under Giro and Bell reported strong domestic and international growth. Other categories called out as particularly strong were composite baseball bats, composite hockey sticks, football helmets, pads, and apparel.
The integration between Easton and Bell Sports is also progressing well. In the last eight months, the company has completed a full strategic planning process, which will focus on organic growth and adjacent category product extensions. The company seems to be pursuing the latter part of this strategy with the Giro brand in particular, with product extensions into footwear and goggles in the last three months.
The company is also in the process of implementing a new SAP system across its entire stable of brands. Phase I reportedly went “live” with the action sports segment and a portion of the team sports segment. Management feels the SAP system is key to supporting the future growth of all of the brands. Management also said that they continue to consider acquisitions an essential part of their growth strategy. However, they feel that the appropriate time to consider an acquisition would be during the latter part of 2007, after the SAP system is implemented.
Finally, management said that the option of a public equity offering is always something they could consider. “We can explore possibly doing a (public) equity offering, but theres obviously no intention of doing that right now,” said Mark Tripp, Easton-Bell Sports CFO.
