SALOMON

Salomon brand has maintained its luster even after the French company came under the wing of the Adidas group in 1997 and then was acquired by Amer Sports in 2005. It holds about 20% of the Japanese market, vying with Rossignol for world leadership.

The most important feature of Salomon skis is the pilot system it uses, which is said to make skiing easier by better conveying the skier's force to the boards. When Salomon introduced a model incorporating the system in 2000, there were few brands that used it. Since then, however, numerous ski makers have developed similar structures and the system has become the mainstream.

Salomon has started to overhaul its marketing strategy this season. Under the new approach, it releases new models after the ski season has started and tries to sell them all before retailers begin discounting them for special sales. According to the new strategy, the Japanese unit started to sell the new 2006 models through retailers nationwide in January, after unveiling them in December.

Its rivals question how the French company can secure enough time for demonstrations and whether it can conduct sufficient promotional campaigns for new models under the new strategy, while recognizing how innovative the approach is.

Rental outlets are the front-line bases for the sales campaign, often carrying the name Salomon Station. The Japanese arm has set up outlets at seven major ski resorts across the country, renting the latest models to give skiers a taste of how good they are. If people who ski at resorts that do not have aSalomon Station request, the firm will deliver rental skis to their homes. Salomon plans to increase the number of rental stations in the coming months.

K2

Arden Inc. has inked a $666 million cash-and-stock definitive for sporting goods maker K2 Inc., and many agree it is about time.Carlsbad, Calif.-based K2, after all, is led by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Richard Heckmann, a consummate dealmaker with the company for more than four years.Seventeen years ago, Heckmann founded United States Filter Corp. when the water treatment company generated $17 million in revenue annually, and oversaw its $8.2 billion takeout nine years later to Vivendi S.A. In 1999, U.S. Filter, thanks to more than 250 acquisitions, was a $5 billion-in-annual-revenue operation.On April 25, Rye, N.Y.-based Jarden, itself helmed by a well-known dealmaker, Martin Franklin, publicized its plan to acquire K2 for 0.1086 shares and $10.85 cash for each share of K2 stock. As one arb described Franklin: "We just have the utmost respect for Martin Franklin as an acquiror and integrator of assets."Jarden is a collector of assets, largely consumer, including Sunbeam appliances and Mr. Coffee.

The Street reacted to the deal news by raising K2's share price to about 33 cents a share under its deal price, an expected response. At press time, K2 traded at $15.22 per share, 25 cents south of its per-share value in the deal.What Jarden will get, should the transaction fly, isK2's large stable of baseball equipment assets, notably gloves and balls. The company is holding its annual meeting next week on May 17.A spokesman for $3.1 billion market cap Jarden could not be reached for comment on the K2 situation. In March 2004, Heckmann, with the company since October 2002, spoke with Mergers & Acquisitions Report about the acquisitive company's M&A strategy (See M&AR, 3/8/04).On March 26, 2003, K2 consummated its $105.7 million stock swap for Rawlings Sporting Goods Co. Inc. On April 30 of that year K2 inked a deal to add ABC Helmut Co. to the Rawlings platform. Then, in another addition to the Rawlings group, K2 bought Worth Inc., primarily a baseball maker, a few months later.Dudley Mendenhall, CFO of K2, who spoke with M&AR a year ago when Russell Corp. was being taken out by Berkshire Hathaway Inc., could not be reached before press time to talk about K2's deal. Mendenhall had deemed the $600 million price Berkshire paid for Russell "a good price."For the first quarter,K2 earned $4.7 million on revenue of $372.7 million, compared to earnings of $5 million on revenue of $348 million for the year-earlier period.