Jarden Corp. Sees Trade-Offs in Weather Issues

We have no skis in our warehouse, Lillie told analysts at the Piper Jaffray investor conference last week. There’s probably about 3 percent overhang from last year in the marketplace. In a normal year you have 6 percent, 7% percent, 8 percent overhang depending on the geography. So we are expecting a pretty reasonable skis season almost irrespective of the weather at this point.

Jarden said recent natural disasters have been a wash for its outdoor business. A surge in sales of Coleman shelters, sleeping bags and portable tents to Japans disaster relief workers and survivors offset a decline in fishing and playing cards sales caused by flooding in the U.S.  The floods shut down Mississippi riverboat casinos, causing them to reorder fewer playing cards. 

Lillie added that Coleman-branded product sales have performed well at its largest customers, which include Wal-Mart Stores Inc., over the last ten days as warmer weather has reached more of the U.S. Still, he said the company is monitoring private label and competitors inventory levels at retail closely.

You could have a situation where our coolers, our thermal, our insulated coolers are performing well, or our sleeping bags are performing well, but there’s some potential that we might not get reorders because retailers are looking to drive out the inventory of the private label products because they have nobody to return it to, he said.

On the sourcing front, Lillie said Jarden is bringing some manufacturing back to the Western Hemisphere from China where it employs about 7,500 in seven factories. While Jarden will not abandon China, it is unlikely to make incremental investments in its manufacturing platform there.