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Published
Dec 7, 2012
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Reebok closes its European offices

Published
Dec 7, 2012

For some time now Reebok has been seeing poor quarterly financial results. The most recent report showed that the brand, part of the Adidas Group, had seen sales decline by 15.5% in the first nine months of the year to 1.2 billion euros. These poor results are combined with the loss of a sponsor partnership with the American football league and an embarrassing fraudulent ordeal in India has made for a bad year for the company.

The group has adjusted its expected turnover projections for 2015 from 3.9 billion to 2.6 million dollars.

Reebok focusing on fitness with its Crossfit concept (photo: Reebok)


The announcement of a company restructure, therefore, comes as no surprise. Whilst activity in America is to be left largely untouched, the story in Europe is somewhat different. 150 employees are to be made redundant, with 65 of these based at the brands international Head Office in Canton. The European offices in Amsterdam have been closed as well as the Asia-Pacific office in Hong Kong.

“Earlier this year we announced the reorganization of the Reebok Brand team into six core Business Units (Training, Running, Walking, Studio, Classics, and Kids), designed to deliver against our ambition to become the leading fitness brand,” said Matt O’Toole, head of Marketing at Reebok. “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 our satellite creation activities. These changes, which will go into effect January, 2013, will increase our effectiveness, our speed to market and our efficiency.”

The question remains what exactly Adidas wish to achieve with the streamlining and reorganization of Reebok? Following the imposed reorientation of Reebok to fitness and fashion, are we going to be seeing rumors of a takeover rise their heads again?

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