Oakley Invites Big Players to Headquarters

FOOTHILL RANCH — Oakley Inc. used its second annual shareholders meeting on Tuesday to showcase its new, fortress-like corporate headquarters atop a hill in an industrial park.

A cadre of sports stars that endorses the company’s products --including Oakley board member Michael Jordan and fellow Chicago Bulls teammate Dennis Rodman--joined shareholders who heard Oakley founder and Chairman Jim Jannard deliver an upbeat presentation on designs being developed in the increasingly competitive eye wear market.

Oakley moved into its new, 413,000-square-foot manufacturing and headquarters building earlier this year from a smaller facility in Irvine. The building’s design incorporates oversized bolts and rivets, along with burnished steel and concrete. Jannard said the building would enhance the company’s ability to design and produce new products.

Jannard also hinted that the eye wear manufacturing company might branch out into apparel and other products, but brushed off a question about strategies Oakley is developing to combat Nike Inc., the consumer products giant that recently pushed its well-known name into the eye wear market.

He relied on Chief Executive Officer Mike Parnell and Chief Operating Officer Link Newcomb to discuss details of how the company plans to avoid a repeat of this past winter’s disappointing stock performance. Shareholders hammered Oakley shares, dropping the stock from a yearly high of $24.50 to a low of $8.375. The company since has rebounded to $12.125 in New York Stock Exchange trading.

Oakley’s problems surfaced late last year when Sunglass Hut, Oakley’s single largest wholesale customer, suddenly found itself awash in sunglasses. Oakley stopped shipping product to the Coral Gables, Fla.-based company, which recently reported that President and Chief Executive Jack B. Chadsey had resigned.

Oakley thought its sales were “on fire,” Newcomb said. “But they were acquiring inventory that they didn’t need.”

Oakley executives said Thursday that the inventory situation at Coral Gables has improved, and that increased communication between the two companies should prevent a similar setback.

“To be really honest, if we’d done [these steps] a year ago, we’d be in a different situation today,” Newcomb said. “When all of this broke, we said [to Sunglass Hut] that we needed to have more information from you real-time.”