Pierre André Senizergues, the CEO and owner of Lake Forest, California-based Sole Technology, is selling the etnies, éS, and Emerica skate footwear brands and the ThirtyTwo snowboard brand to the Nidecker Group.
Switzerland-based Nidecker, which has been family-held for 137 years, started as a furniture maker, moved into skis, and now owns several snowboard brands, including Nidecker, Yes, Jones, Rome, and Bataleon.
In an interview with SES, Pierre said the brands’ operations will move onto the Nidecker backend platform and Sole Technology will wind down.
A new entity will be formed to buy the brands themselves, and Pierre will hold a minority interest, with the three Nidecker brothers – Henry, Xavier, and Cédric – becoming the majority owners. Pierre will take on the role of CEO of the brands and focus on product, marketing, design, and sales. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
A good portion of Sole Tech employees that work on the brands are expected to be hired by Nidecker going forward. That process is just getting underway.
Pierre founded etnies 38 years ago, and added the other brands over the years. He has remained the sole owner of the brands and of Sole Tech during that time.
Deciding to sell the brands, which have been a significant part of skateboard culture, and wind down Sole Tech has been a difficult decision, he said.
“I tossed and turned, debating with myself if this is the right thing,” Pierre said. “How do I do this and still keep my soul? When you deeply believe in something and it has come from your heart that’s important. But when you look at the facts, I concluded this was the best decision to make.”
Plus, when he began speaking with the Nideckers, the pieces fell into place. The Nidecker Group is privately held and financially stable, with a long-term vision, which was important to Pierre. The Nidecker brothers, who now own and operate the business, grew up in the action sports industry and respect the Sole Tech brands.
“I really like that they are young, they and their team are fast thinkers, they move fast, they are smart, they understand the feeling of action sports, and they are fans of our brands,” Pierre said.
“And the most important thing – we are aligned on our values. I think when you make a decision based on values, it has more of chance to work out.”
“I’ve seen a lot of brands sold lately where I’m not sure if they are in the right hands with the licensing model compared to the brands being owned by people who actually ride, skate, and snowboard and live and breathe the industry. I think this is a good match, and I’m excited about the new journey.”
It was also important for Pierre that the brands stay together, because what is happening in skateboarding influences ThirtyTwo, for example.
The Nidecker brothers told SES in an interview that they have always had a lot of respect for Pierre.
“To come from nothing and build the brands and keep 100% of the company – we admired that,” Henry Nidecker said. “He’s taken care of the brands, and is always committed to building the best product and taking care of his people and doing the right things for the right reasons.
“For us at Nidecker, we have a different history, but very similar values. The company is owned by me and my brothers, we are always focused on making the best product we can, and bringing other people along with us.”
Pierre and the Nideckers first started talking about snowboard boot brand ThirtyTwo, and how they could help each other, Henry said. Then the brothers told him how much they loved the skate brands as well and would be proud to be a part of them, and the talks evolved.
“We also love the people who work for Pierre, so we said let’s see if we can find a deal and combine our strengths and do something together,” Henry said. “I also think Pierre saw with the acquisitions we have made in the past that the brands grew a lot because they had more resources and were able to do things they had wanted to do but couldn’t before because maybe they didn’t have the financial resources.”
Xavier and Cédric Nidecker, Pierre André Senizergues, Henry Nidecker. Photo courtesy of Sole Technology.
Lasted Longer Than Most
From starting etnies as a broke French skateboarder in 1986, to riding the action sports boom period from the mid-’90s until the global recession in 2008, it’s been a wild ride, Pierre said.
During the go-go years, Sole Tech had 14 straight years of revenue growth, and had to nearly triple its warehouse space every year.
“It was the golden age of action sports at the time,” Pierre said. “And the industry as a whole was keeping the non-endemic brands out of the market.”
But since the recession hit, the challenges have kept on coming – the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis, and big athletic brands entering the space, luring athletes with bigger paychecks and becoming dominant players at core skate shops.
“In footwear, there are a lot of big public companies that have come into our world,” he said. “It’s almost an unfair battle. Some of these companies that are making skate shoes, the skate group might not have ever been profitable, but because they are part of the large group it’s okay.”
Then came a global pandemic, an over-inventoried market which led to discounting which in turn crushed margins, record inflation and a spike in interest rates, and now two wars.
Sole Tech is one of the few companies in the industry who have remained privately held with no outside ownership through all that – many competitors have either gone bankrupt, or sold to private equity or to licensing companies.
“When we made a lot of money, I also understood we could lose a lot of money,” Pierre said. “So I invested in other things to diversify, knowing I might need to put that money back in the company at some point. I have done that over the years, and now there’s not much left.”
“But that’s okay, because I never did this to get rich. I was always about supporting skateboarding, supporting the market, supporting the athletes,” he said.
The etnies classic Callicut shoe, which is making a comeback. Photo courtesy of etnies.
No Regrets About Holding On
I asked Pierre if he knew then what he knows now would he have sold earlier or done anything differently?
“Any mistake I made along the way, it always came from the heart,” he said. “I don’t regret some of the mistakes I made that lost a lot of money because they came from the right place.”
As far as selling earlier, he had talked at different points to private equity firms, and it never felt right.
“They didn’t seem to get what we are doing,” he said. “Plus, it’s all about the five-year thing. That’s a big worry for me, because I created these brands for the love of skateboarding and snowboarding, they represent something we really believe in. So private equity made no sense.
“I talked to some private companies in our space before – that probably would have been the best fit. But a lot of private companies have disappeared in our industry over the past 38 years. One I talked to in the past is now bankrupt, so that would have not been great for the brands.”
After nearly 40 years of having the entire weight of the company and the brands on his back, I asked Pierre if he was relieved to get some help.
“When you are the only owner, you have all the problems in the world hitting you every day,” he said. “Supply chain issues, factories around the globe, you wake up one day and there’s a new war and suddenly your containers can’t go in the Red Sea, they have to go around Africa. You turn on the news at night and something’s changed, and the next morning, you need to figure out what to do.
“So it will be nice to not have everything on me, but of course, I plan to help the brothers as much as I can with whatever they need. I’ve always been about contributing.”
And there’s good news on the footwear trends front – with puffy skate shoes, a Sole Tech specialty, back in fashion, the company is seeing an uptick in pre-books for Holiday ’24.
“We have a lot of designs from the ‘90s and 2000s to pull from,” Pierre said. “I have all our catalogs from the beginning – I designed a lot of those shoes – so we have a library to tap into.”
He believes there is a big opportunity there, especially with the Nidecker Group’s backing. He also thinks the upcoming Olympics in Paris, where skateboarding will play a featured role, will be great for the skate brands.
An image from the ThirtyTwo sales meeting in Mammoth in December. Photo courtesy of ThirtyTwo.
No Longer a “Young Chicken”
Another reason why Pierre decided to sell the brands – his age. He turned 61 this week.
“I’m not the young chicken I used to be,” he said, laughing. “While I’m sad to wind down Sole Tech, I’m grateful for this new partnership and to start this new journey with fresh blood. The brothers are only in their 30s.
“We also have to put our trust in the new generation, which is necessary to stay relevant. We can’t do it forever, we have to pass the torch to the generation that has so much energy and drive and vision.”
Lastly, I asked Pierre if he thinks an action sports industry still exists.
“It’s not the same industry that it was in the ‘90s and 2000s,” he said. “I think with all the acquisitions and licensing going on, it’s losing its soul in a sense.
“But there are a lot of new brands coming from the ground up. They will probably grow slowly and surely, and push out the ones that are not authentic. I hope some private companies like Nidecker continue, and they inspire the next general of entrepreneurs to spark the idea that they can do it, too. So while I don’t know if we can bring the golden age of the industry back, we can start a new age that is different, and even better.”
The éS Accel OG. Photo courtesy of éS.
Ready to Learn
The Nidecker brothers get big smiles when they talk about moving into the skateboard world with etnies, éS, and Emerica.
“We love the vibe, the spirit of the community,” Cedric said. “It’s not something we want to change, we want to cherish the brands and help them go to the next level.”
And the Nideckers expect to hire a good portion of the Sole Tech brand teams to work on the brands going forward.
“We know nothing about product, sales, and marketing on the skateboarding side, and we believe ThirtyTwo can also teach us a lot of things,” Henry said. “And our company will need to adapt. Today, we have one product launch per year, one season, now we need to do one every few months. We see it as an exciting project because it will make our company more flexible, it’s a new challenge for everyone. Pierre’s team will need to teach us a lot of things. But we will try to help as much as we can on other elements as well.”
Given the turmoil in the industry of late, I asked the Nideckers if they had any qualms about making an acquisition now.
“We really don’t think like that because there is always change in industry, and it would be stupid to base our decision on that because you don’t know what’s going to happen in one or two or five years,” Henry said. “We are doing this now because we love the brands and we want to be part of it. We are committed for 100 years, so if the next two years are bad or good it changes nothing because we don’t want to sell in five years. For us it’s more about the authenticity of the brands, and how we can take care of the brands for the long term.”
“We don’t do calculated stuff or base a decision on the financials,” Cedric said. “We really go on passion, what we love to see, how we can grow in the future and what can we learn.”
And then, sounding a lot like Pierre, Cedric added:
“Really for us, it comes more from the heart than from the spreadsheet.”
