Fenix Outdoor International reported sales climbed 13.4 percent in the third quarter.
The Swedish company’s Frilufts retail segment includes Naturkompaniet, Partioaitta Oy, Friluftsland, and Globetrotter. Its Brands segment includes Fjällräven, Tierra, Primus, Royal Robbins, and Hanwag.
Sales in the quarter reached €224.2 million, up from €197.6 million a year ago. In a statement, Martin Nordon, executive chairman, said, “In June and July sales in the retail part of the business were not ideal due to the extremely warm weather in many parts of Europe, as well as consumers being more interested in traveling to even warmer climates. In August most markets showed improvement caused by the colder weather arriving.”
Operating profits decreased 3.6 percent to €42.8 million from €44.4 million. Gross profits were negatively affected by one-time excess transportation costs of €2.6 million tied to the pandemic. The year-ago period also included some rent subsidies in German stores.
Said Nordon, “In terms of costs, we are already facing rising costs going forward. Another financial effect, which started already in Q2, has continued. Our inventories are up. Due to the nature of our business, with an extremely long product life cycle, we have decided to use this fact in combination with our strong liquidity, to secure our ability to deliver goods timely in 2023. This allows us to secure prices and transport costs (e.g., cost of goods sold) extensively, to enable us to maintain margin while limiting price increases as much as possible towards our highly valued customer within our Brands and Global Sales divisions.”
