Weekly News...2/18/05 FEBRUARY 18, 2005 -- New Brooks Site Is Online The new Brooks Sports website is online at http://brooksrunning.com. Features include: Shoe Advisor to find the best Brooks shoe for you; Runner's Resource contains info on training tips, sports medicine, injury prevention, events and athletes; Footwear Technology offers a virtual tour through a shoe from each platform to learn how technologies help runners; and News offers brief newsbytes about some of the latest happenings at Brooks. Saucony Sends Out Roses To Support Hurricane Launch Hundred's of Saucony's retail partners on Valentine's Day received a long stem rose as a prelude to the upcoming launch of Saucony's new Hurricane running shoe. Along with the rose was what Saucony termed a "love note" saying, "Your customer’s quest to find their perfect running partner will end on March 1st when the new 3D Grid Hurricane 7 arrives at your store." The promotion supports the Hurricane’s "true love" advertising campaign running in national magazines March 2005 through May 2005. The ad features a red rose being offered to a 3D Grid Hurricane 7 running shoe. The rose is held between the toes of a woman's foot. The words “true love,” in lower case, sit under the image. Publications carrying the new ad include Runner’s World, Running Times, Triathlete, Shape and Real Simple, among others. "The Hurricane has always been the flagship technical model for Saucony and this new model is even better than all the others," said Tom Carleo, vp of marketing for Saucony. "We believe this is a fun way to connect with our retail partners and communicate to them that runners are going to fall in love with the Hurricane all over again." The 3D Grid Hurricane 7 was named “Best Running Shoe” for 2005 by Health magazine in its January/February 2005 issue. The 3D Grid Hurricane 7 offers the ultimate blend of cushioning and stability, specifically addressing each phase of the gait cycle with carefully selected technologies and materials, including Saucony’s patented Super Rebound Compound (S.R.C.), an evolution of its HRC cushioning technology. The 3D Grid Hurricane 7 comes in men’s sizes 7-13 and 14, and women’s sizes 5-11 and 12. SRP of the Saucony 3D Grid Hurricane 7 is $120. Adidas-Salomon Gets New Revolving Credit Facility Adidas-Salomon Group signed its EUR800 million Revolving Credit Facility ($1.307 billion), which will serve as a replacement for the medium-term lines that the Group terminated in the summer of 2004. This measure will allow Adidas-Salomon to continue to improve its financing structure by further optimizing fees and extending maturities of its available credit lines. The facility, which matures in February 2010 and includes two one-year extension options exercisable at the end of the first and second years, was arranged by Barclays Capital, The Royal Bank of Scotland plc, BNP Paribas, HSBC Bank plc and WestLB. Adidas Selects GSI Commerce To Provide E-Commerce Solution GSI Commerce signed a multi-year agreement under which the company will provide and operate a new, integrated e-commerce solution for Adidas' online store. GSI already performs similar services for Reebok and Rockport. The new online store is expected to launch during the summer. The integrated solution provided by GSI will include e-commerce technology, managed hosting, order management, and other services. GSI will integrate its e-commerce platform with Adidas' current, third-party fulfillment provider. The new online store, http://www.thestore.adidas.com, will continue to offer consumers footwear, apparel and accessories for men, women and children, and will include merchandise from Adidas' "original" and "performance" lines. In addition, Adidas will use GSI’s CRM services, which will provide a 360-degree view of Adidas' online customers and be used to up sell and cross sell merchandise. Syndication was launched at the beginning of 2005 to a selected group of Adidas-Salomon's relationship banks, and the transaction closed significantly oversubscribed. However, Adidas-Salomon decided not to increase the facility and banks were scaled back accordingly.