NKE - Bronte Capital - Hibbett: Nike's Core Retailer To A Core Demographic

2024-02-21 09:05:00 ET

Summary

• Hibbett made a small acquisition of City Gear, a highly urban retailer of street clothing targeted at a mostly African American market.
• Nike has several times called Hibbett out as an important partner.
• The market thought Nike was going to kill Hibbett/City Gear. We thought that Nike was going to kill their competition.
• We think that City Gear - and Hibbett - really is different.

The following segment was excerpted from this fund letter.

Hibbett, Inc. ( HIBB )

Hibbett is a retailer of street wear (especially sneakers) and a small volume of sporting goods (shoes with cleats, for instance). It is an unusual position for Bronte, and we hold approximately 5 percent of the company. Our share of the company has been increasing as management bought back the stock.

It is not our intention to buy stakes in companies large enough to influence management - and we prefer keeping the ability to sell without an undue impact on the stock. This makes it unlikely we will buy more of the stock....

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