Someone thinks that if Nike gets rid of Converse that it will be good for both parties. For Nike I know it will, but for Converse I’m not sure if it will be good at all. Moreover, I think it would bring them a lot of trouble, but that’s just my opinion and maybe I’m not right. Why do some think this would be better for Converse as well, can anyone explain to me that logic?
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Nike owns Converse, so PHK could settle a very old score, with a chap named Gib Ford, who led the move by non-Nike industry players, in the Nike early days, to use the Federal Government and a questionable Tariff penalty to sink the company.
Now like a lot of the stories in Shoe Dog, it was not exactly the truth, and the part about PHK, and the Kraken, was one of my favorite parts of the book.
PHK refused to join the "Club" of Old Guard players in the industry, hob knobbing was not PHK's way, often spoke of as strategy, but really a matter of Phil wanting to cover for himself, and his team's complete lack of industry experience, they made it up as they plunged ahead.
The Tariff ploy almost sunk BRS, but as PHK often did, he just grinded it out, had the help, LUCK, as he almost always did in the beginning, of an extraordinarily dedicated maniacally focused employee. Did not hurt to be a Hatfield when he was walking those Congressional halls.
PHK was rarely confident, at the right time, for the right reasons, what they did to Phil was wrong, but his relative victory, 9 million, in retrospect was a memorable win. After the two class IPO, the industry belonged to Nike.
Gibb Ford, Olympic Gold Medalist, average Converse executive, great golfer, talented story teller at a bar, died in 2017.
Certainly exiting Converse, is not as bad as the Umbro retreat, that's another story.
Makes no sense to divest of Converse. They are (somehow) still the highest margin line. High schoolers and hipsters overpaying for canvas CTs?
I was surprised when they put converse.com commerce on a separate stack than nike.com ....I figured Converse would be sold by now.
They can go and sell the Chuck at Big chain retailers, like they did with the One Star and Target and make a fortune