Stollenwerk and some partners bought Allen-Edmonds in 1980 from descendents of the founders. Later on, Stollenwerk bought out his partners and built the brand into one recognized around the world.
Unlike his competitors in the footwear industry, Stollenwerk has kept production in the U.S. Allen-Edmonds employs about 550 people in Wisconsin and Maine and makes more than 500,000 pairs of men’s shoes a year. Thanks to the introduction of lean manufacturing and cell concepts, the company can make a pair in seven hours. Shoes are made to order, with the inventory of finished products kept very low.
The shoes are handcrafted from imported leather and can sell for more than $300 a pair. During his tenure, Stollenwerk has seen a decline in the number of independent shoe stores interested in carrying the line, and his distribution channels have become limited. As a result, the company has opened a chain of retail stores that carry not only shoes but also upscale accessories. Sales are about $100 million annually.
As he reached his mid-60s, Stollenwerk knew the company would need to invest in even more stores – at about $1 million each – to continue to grow. That meant “I would have to go to a bank and borrow a considerable amount of money,” he said.
He had done that in the past, and the idea of managing it in the future did not appeal to him. He has children, but none is interested in taking over the company, so his mind turned to other options.
Category: Business
Energy Market Tea Leaves
BP readers correctly pointed out to the change in the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI) (Here, here and of course, here). Tim Iacono did a nice job on the details the following month.
That mid-year halving of the gasoline weighting caught quite a few people by surprise. The timing — slashing energy futures weightings 2 months before the mid-term elections — was stunning to say the least. The GSCI changes had wide ranging impacts, leading (indirectly at the very least) to: Amaranth’s implosion, a drop in CPI / inflation rates, the market rally since the July lows, and of course, GS’s record setting Q3/Q4 profits (Hey, its nice to be the House).
A Semi Self Defense of Enron
I also have a minor challenge for aficionados of the Enron case.
Years ago, when I was at the Washington Post, one of my colleagues on the science desk—Bill Booth—called up a dozen or so Nobel Laureates in physics and asked them to explain, in plain language, the nature and significance of the Higgs Boson atomic particle. None of them could. This was at a time, mind you, when the physics community was arguing passionately for the construction of a multi-billion dollar particle accelerator to look for things like the Higgs Boson. So it wasn’t for lack of interest. They were gung-ho for nailing the Higgs Boson. They just couldn’t explain the Higgs Boson.
Can anyone explain—in plain language—what it is Jeff Skilling and Co. did wrong?
The Creation of American Girl’s 2007 Girl of the Year – Nikki
Christina Binkley visits Middleton’s American Girl (a unit of Mattel):
A little more than a year ago, executives at the dollmaker American Girl sat down to undertake a high-stakes marketing mission: cramming everything the company deems uplifting and authentic about American girls into a single plastic and cloth figure. The goal: to create a character so compelling that parents will pay $86 for an 18-inch doll and a paperback book.
Working with a trove of customer feedback culled from its magazine, Web and book-publishing empire, the company determined that the typical girl these days is dependable, athletic and loves animals. She is also completely overscheduled and stressed out. She skis like a demon, rides horses, trains guide dogs, plans school parties, washes the dishes, battles popularity crises and helps her little brother with his math homework.
The improbable result is Nicki Fleming, the company’s 2007 Girl of the Year — an annual event in which the Mattel Inc. unit releases, on Jan. 1, a new doll meant to capture the current state of girlhood. Nicki’s dog Sprocket, together with training treats, a collar and leash, sells for $24. Her horse Jackson with Western saddle costs $62; his tack box, curry brush and carrots are $34.
Mattel’s (Jill Barrad was CEO at the time) acquisition of Pleasant Rowland’s American Girl for some $700M lead the way to the creation of Madison’s Overture Center. Former Oscar Meyer CEO Bob Eckert currently runs Mattel.
The Future of the Equity Premium
Brad DeLong and Konstantin Magin:
Suppose that, at the start of some year since the beginning of the twentieth century, you had taken $1,000,000 that you had invested in bonds and believed you would not want to touch for twenty years, and invested it insteade in a diversified portfolio of equities. (Or suppose you had been able to borrow $1,000,000 at the long-term government bond rate). And suppose you had then let both legs of that investment ride for twenty years. What would have been the results in dollars (adjusted for inflation) twenty years later?
Guns to Caviar Index
Reading the news, it’s easy to get the sense that the world is at war: strife in Afghanistan, chaos in Iraq, genocide in Darfur, upheaval in Lebanon, and a variety of insurgencies and border squabbles around the globe. Reading the news, it’s also easy to get the sense that the world is in the midst of a golden age of peaceful prosperity. Each year, tens of millions of Indians and Chinese join the middle class. Latin America and South America, previously dominated by authoritarian regimes and civil wars, are now generally democratic and enjoying steady growth.
So, which is it? Is the world more peaceful or more warlike? Since Americans are doing the lion’s share of the fighting and military policing, it’s difficult for us to answer the question objectively. Fortunately, there is an unbiased global economic indicator that sheds some light on the question: the Guns-to-Caviar Index.
A History of Information Processing
TO FIND A SITUATION COMPARABLE TO THE PRESENT WE NEED TO REVISIT THE LAST GREAT INFORMATION REVOLUTION WHICH TOOK PLACE MORE THAN FIVE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
This timeline is revised and expanded from the timeline available in the printed edition of From Gutenberg to the Internet, and widened greatly in scope. It is a work in progress, continuing the research which I began in the printed book. This is one of an untold number of timelines on the web. Even so, the approach that I am taking in building this growing timeline is, as far as I know, unique, at least for now. Thus some explanation may be in order. These introductory remarks, which I began writing in December 2005, first concern From Gutenberg to the Internet and then address issues involved with studying the history of information recorded in physical form in relationship to the history of information in digital form. They are a result of my continuing studies since the book was published, and they are evolving into another book. Your comments would be appreciated.
2007 Financial Market Forecasts
We polled 80 strategists for their 2007 predictions, and many think tech stocks will be on top. Call it a 7% year. That’s the return the 80 strategists we polled expect in 2007 for the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. Our prognosticators overwhelmingly think technology will be the best-performing sector next year, but still come up with a forecast of only a 9% gain in the tech-heavy NASDAQ Composite. They expect the Russell 2000, an index of small-cap stocks, to lag, with just a 6% return. Strategists are listed according to their yearend Dow forecasts, from the most bullish to the most bearish
Details on AirTran’s Midwest Desires
A two-month exchange of letters between Leonard and Hoeksema, published in an AirTran filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, reveals that Midwest rejected an initial AirTran proposal more than a year ago–for $4.25 per share, according to Skornicka–and that things got testy in mid-November after Hoeksema told Leonard he would present an assessment of the offer to Midwest’s board at its regular meeting on Dec. 6.
Leonard replied Nov. 22 that it was “unacceptable” for Hoeksema to wait for the board’s next regular meeting and suggested that Midwest’s management wasn’t carrying out its fiduciary duty to shareholders. He also hinted at a hostile-takeover attempt–“[O]ur passive response to your rejection of our original offer is not the pattern that you can continue to expect from us.” Hoeksema reassured Leonard Nov. 27 that Midwest wasn’t dragging its feet.
ALSO, LEONARD TOLD Hoeksema that the merged airline would “significantly increase jobs in a way that Midwest could never do under any possible scenario,” and that it would “materially improve the scope and frequency of air service in Milwaukee and Kansas City . . . far beyond anything Midwest can offer as an independent company.” Milwaukee and Kansas City are the origins or destinations of 83% and 13% of Midwest’s service, respectively.
Nice bit of digging in AirTran’s SEC filings. Nothing good will happen if the AirTran takeover occurs. Dennis McCann recently gave both a try.
Nothing Good Will Come of a Midwest / Airtran Merger….
AirTran Holdings is roughly a tenth the size of its main competitor, Delta Air Lines. So AirTran executives would seem unlikely cheerleaders of a potential merger that would make Delta 60 percent larger.
But the recent $8.5 billion takeover offer for Delta by US Airways has found a fan in Joseph B. Leonard, chief executive at AirTran, which, like Delta, flies routes across the Southeast from its hub in Atlanta.
“I’m rooting for it,” Mr. Leonard said yesterday in an interview, after announcing his own proposed takeover of Midwest Air, an airline based in Oak Creek, Ill., for $290 million.
Mr. Leonard may relish his role as underdog but that is not why he hopes the carriers merge — he just wants to see fewer jets in the sky. After all, US Airways’ proposed takeover would reduce the two airlines’ combined jet fleet about 10 percent.