Reebok’s shoes are generally made for athletic use, but the brand now means something else for 150 of its employees across the globe. That’s the number of folks that were sent packing in a recent company restructuring, according to theBoston Herald.
About 65 of those folks came from the company’s US headquarters in Canton, Mass. “Today, we continued this reorganization with the implementation of a new global-direct operating model between the global organization in Canton and our markets, and a streamlining (of) our satellite creation activities,” Matt O’Toole, Reebok’s chief marketing officer, stated.
It also eliminated its European HQ in Amsterdam and its Asia-Pacific office in Hong Kong. That’s too bad, considering the company that is now a subsidiary of Adidas got started in the United Kingdom way back in 1895. Still, Reebok has been a drag on Adidas since its acquisition in 2006, as the Wall Street Journal noted last month. Now it's time for a little fiscal, and physical, fitness.
Adidas bought Reebok back in 2005 for $3.8 billion with the aim of turning the company around. That apparently hasn’t been going so well, despite high-profile tie-ins with the likes of Alicia Keysand Alan Iverson. In the last two quarters, Reebok has experienced a sales slump of 25 percent and 26 percent, the Herald reports, “hurt by a decline in toning shoe sales, fraud at its Indian unit, the loss of a major NFL contract and the NHL lockout.” The loss of the NFL contract to rival Nike took away an estimated $200M to $250M annually, according to WSJ.
That’s a whole lot of hurt. So much so that Adidas had to lower its sales forecast for 2012 a month ago. But don’t worry! Things are going to be just fine! “Classics are doing well, kids is doing well,” Adidas CEO Herbert Hainer said in a video last month. “I’m quite convinced we will be back to growth in 2013.”
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