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Kathmandu is pushing ahead with opening five new stores by the end of this year and sees a positive future for markets in New Zealand, Australia and Britain.
But at the same time as its private equity owners aim at what they say is a burgeoning outdoor retail
market, some long-established retailers are walking away.
Founder Jan Cameron became New Zealand's richest woman at the time on the strength of the fashionable outdoor store before selling out last year to the Hauraki Fund at Goldman Sachs JBWere and another private equity player, Quadrant.
Kathmandu has 23 outlets in New Zealand, 29 in Australia and four in Britain and expansion is planned in all three countries.
Kathmandu chairman Clark Perkins, of Goldman Sachs JBWere, said the company planned to open five new stores in New Zealand by the end of this year including an outlet at the new Westfield complex in Albany on the North Shore.
Kathmandu has already opened outlets at Wellington Airport and Sylvia Park, Mt Wellington, this year.
Kathmandu is the biggest player in the outdoor retail market and Perkins said there was no important competitor on the horizon in Australia to undermine growth in that territory.
He said Kathmandu's success was based on good-quality merchandise and growing interest in the outdoors.
But he rejected a suggestion that the company, with a reputation for high margins, was built around revenue from its sales.
Three sales each year had attracted "almost cult status" but business was strong outside sale periods as well, he said.
Wayne Martin, managing director of Kathmandu's closest competitor in this country, Bivouac, which has nine stores, said the market for the outdoor sector had changed with Kathmandu tapping a market distinct from the traditional camping and outdoor store.
He said Australian retailers such as the outdoor franchise Snowgum were moving into the NZ market, with mixed results
Martin said several small companies owned by individuals continued and were built on a close relationship with trampers and outdoor enthusiasts.
But in Auckland two New Zealand firms have withdrawn from the market.
One of those small operators - family firm Tisdalls - is closing its Queen St, Auckland, store to focus on outlets in Wellington and Palmerston North.
Company director Richard Tisdall did not return calls from the Business Herald.
But it is understood that the withdrawal from Auckland was influenced by the end of a valuable rental contract on its prime Queen St location.
Tisdalls' move out of Auckland is unrelated to the departure of another family-based firm, Doyles Outdoors, which retrenched to one central-city store and is currently in liquidation.
In 2005 the Pack & Pedal chain - which sought to link the camping and cycling markets and had grown to nine outlets - went into receivership.
