Volcom announced this morning that it has signed an agreement to buy its Japanese distributor as the company moves to bring another international region in-house.
Chairman and CEO Richard Woolcott has said repeatedly that the company’s sees big growth potential internationally. I remember at Volcom’s shareholder meeting earlier this year, one of the slides showed a map of the world, which Richard called the “opportunity slide.”
Volcom has brought an international outside operation in-house before. Volcom now runs its European business (previously a licensee) itself and has built its own infrastructure there, which allows the company to better control its product, image and distribution.
In Japan, Volcom plans to retain the distributor’s employees. Volcom has worked with the distributor for 15 years.
“Acquiring our Japanese distributor is part of Volcom’s international growth strategy, and we look forward to further enhancing our presence throughout Japan,” Richard said in a statement.
The purchase price was not disclosed in the press release.
Richard has also said several times that he wanted to keep the company’s cash available to take advantages of opportunities during the economic downturn. This is Volcom’s second buy of the summer. Last month, the company announced it is acquiring Laguna Surf & Sport’s two stores.
In the quarter ended June 30, Volcom had $70.6 million in cash.
