Lids Sports Group’s future growing cloudier by the day
Parent company Genesco started trying to sell the Zionsville-based division 10 months ago, but no deal has been struck. Meanwhile Lids' long-running decline has continued.
Parent company Genesco started trying to sell the Zionsville-based division 10 months ago, but no deal has been struck. Meanwhile Lids' long-running decline has continued.
Some analysts say the logical buyer for Zionsville-based Lids Sports Group is Fanatics Inc., an online-only rival that has been on a tear while Lids has struggled.
Genesco’s stock price fell by 20 percent Friday morning after Zionsville-based Lids Sports Group reported a 9.5 percent drop in sales, prompting the parent company to reduce its full-year outlook.
Zionsville-based Lids Sports Group posted disappointing sales in its second quarter, mirroring recent results from other athletic apparel retailers. Its parent company is trying to dampen expectations for the overall firm.
Three major Indianapolis-based retailers struggling with declining sales replaced their CEOs this year as they tried to improve company financials.
Retailers are updating software, revamping supply chains to provide seamless service to consumers, whether they’re shopping from a desktop, a mobile device, a telephone or visiting a store.
Scott Molander, who launched the chain as Hat World with a single store in Tippecanoe Mall in Lafayette in 1995, is joining the Tennessee-based company that's buying Lids' sports-uniform business.
Sales for Indianapolis-based Lids Sports Group have been so disappointing that parent Genesco Inc. within the past six months has twice cut its fiscal 2015 full-year earnings, from a high of $5.55 per share to a low of $4.75 per share.
Genesco’s hat unit now has reported four consecutive quarters of declining same-store sales—an unusual malaise for a business that from 2001 to 2006 posted a miraculous 19 straight quarters of increased same-store sales.
The arrangement is considered an inexpensive way to expand Lids’ reach into large, sports-centric cities. But Wednesday’s earnings report from Macy’s indicates consumers aren’t spending as much on apparel.
The purchase includes nine FansEdge locations in the Chicago area and one in Oklahoma, in addition to two Football Fanatics stores in Jacksonville, Fla.
The purchase of Anaconda Sports helps Hat World to grow its LIDS Team Sports division, created to expand the Indianapolis-based company’s reach beyond hat retailing.
Here’s the business plan: Expand from hat retailing into two new segments—licensed sports apparel and team-sports
equipment—and benefit from the synergies among them.
Athletic retailer The Finish Line Inc. had cultivated a reputation for conservative play calling, keeping clean books with
minimal debt. Then on June 18, the Indianapolis-based retailer called a surprise audible. The $1.3 billion company agreed
to acquire Nashville, Tenn.-based Genesco Inc. for $1.5 billion.