Sports goods firm hits wall owing more than $1m

Photo / Dean Purcell

A sports goods manufacturer which has supplied gear to the All Blacks and the Warriors has been put in liquidation.

Onehunga-based Silver Fern Sports, established in 1948, failed because of a lack of working capital, said liquidator Barry White from Fisher White Associates.

The company owes more than $1.1 million to creditors and five staff have lost their jobs.

The original business was built around leather luggage, golf bags, league, rugby and soccer balls and basketballs.

Successive owners of the company included the late All Black halfback Lin Colling, who further developed rugby equipment.

In the past few years the sales mix became more dominated by sports clothing and team wear.

Directors are listed as Wayne Angus and Geoffrey Shapland.

In his initial report, White says that under previous ownership the firm turned over around $1 million in the years 2004 and 2005 with a cash surplus of $274,000 and $208,000. The current owners' first full financial year to March 31, 2007, showed a turnover just under $1 million.

"Despite there being $200,000 of forward orders on the table and a further $500,000 in sales quoted and expected to come in, a close look at the cost structure of the company and debt position revealed a business with a lot of potential ... but too far in the red for this company to trade out."

White said a new owner could exploit opportunities during Rugby World Cup year to trade on the Silver Fern brand and produce short runs of clothes.

The company did not fail through being undercut by Chinese manufacturers as their costs had increased, he said.

"Our investigations indicate that China now has long lead times and often requires minimum orders of such scale that it makes the typical New Zealand niche market orders uneconomic."

White said New Zealand-made products were typically superior in quality.