As Slowtwitch readers may remember, on January 15th Slowtwitch covered the news that K2, owned by Jarden Corporation, purchased Zoot Sports.

Around the Slowtwitch compound, it's hard to imagine life without Jarden. The first family of Slowtwitch skis on K2 equipment, and the apple orchard on the premises requires Jarden and Ball canning supplies. Apres-bike smoothies are prepared in an Oster blender. We have Karhu nordic equipment here, and our fishing tackle is as likely to be Jarden's Shakespeare or Penn brands as it is Shimano. We slow-cook in our Crock Pot. These are but a very few of Jarden's brands.

The face of Jarden Enterprises is Martin Franklin, an Englishman by birth, chairman and CEO of a $5.5 billion conglomerate. "When we talk about that things that are important to the DNA of the brand," Franklin told me, "we talk about marketing, sales, product development." It is that last element, product development, that Franklin is adamant about protecting, and he thinks he has inoculated Zoot from brand bleaching by keeping intact Zoot's design team.

Still, about half the biological "DNA" of what was Zoot is or soon will be pounding the pavement, and that includes its sales manager, Mike Rouse, and Wendy Misner, who's been with Zoot for eight years, back when the staff numbered three.

One of those still with the company is its president, Brian Enge. "No, we're staying here," was the answer Enge gave when asked on January 15th whether K2 would move its new brand to Seattle. It's not clear whether Enge knew or suspected that this answer would be arguably proven incorrect within 90 days.

In that interview I asked Enge about the synergies that acquiring companies like to enjoy upon the purchase of a smaller company. "The synergies won't be visible," said Enge. He indicated that they'll be in Asia, and will center around "sourcing," he said, and "quality control."

When I asked him whether Zoot will relocate its operations to Seattle, he assured me, "The entire management team is staying on at Zoot." Several on Zoot's management team were also told this at the time: Few or no changes would be made; everyone's job was safe.

Enge told me that "K2's philosophy around the world is to let people do what they're good at, help them at what they're not good at." But anyone who's gone through acquisitions of this nature knows what typically happens.

The half of Zoot that is staying in North San Diego County will bunk with another of Zoot's acquisitions, a Winter sports company in Vista. So, one rent payment saved; one synergy recognized.

Certainly finance, credit collection, warehousing, information systems, are and should be candidates for relocation. To think that this was not coming was to engage in wishful thinking. Still...

I built a company much like Zoot. I sold it to a company much like K2. I was aware that "synergies" were coming. I expected it, and it made sense. One of those synergies was in credit management. Why have two credit managers? But when we got into the tall weeds, and looked at the accounts we had in common we, the tiny acquired company, collected our trade debt better than the big acquiring company. To its credit, Saucony allowed little Quintana Roo to continue collecting its own trade debt, because we did it so well.

The moral of this story: Beware of phantom leverage opportunities that the big company's CFO thinks are sexy, but, turn out flaccid in their execution.

The likeliest make-sense scenario centers around the counter-seasonality of K2 (a Winter sports company) and Zoot. If you're K2 and you want to control more of what your sales reps do with their time—or if you want to hire company reps in place of contracting with independent reps—you have to monopolize these sales' reps time and contribute more to their purse. Zoot is an arrow in the quiver of K2 president Robert Marcovitch, when it comes to matching brands to reps to wrest the best production out of his sales force.

But it's not as if K2 does not own other Summer brands, such as Marmot footwear and Rawlings baseballs, as well as its fishing companies. In the end, no one knows whether Zoot was a passion buy or whether it was a careful and calculated entre into K2's suite of companies. And because of this, it's impossible to guess with any certainty what K2's strategy for the Zoot sales force is.

Accordingly, I think it would be fair—were I an independent sales rep carrying the Zoot line—to ask, "Will I be repping this brand in six months?" If the answer is "yes," best to keep in mind that's the same answer Zoot's inside sales and customer service team received less than three months ago when the same question was posed.

None of this should be meant as a slam on K2 or Jarden, rather that it's a tough world out there. Brian Enge is going to have to convince specialty retailers like Super Jock and Jill in Seattle, Luke's Locker in Dallas, RunTex in Austin, Jackrabbit Sports in New York City, Gear West in Minneapolis, that Zoot will not show up in Sport Chalet, Dick's Sporting Goods, Sports Authority and the like (the wife and I buy our K2 equipment from Sport Chalet, so, will we buy our Zoot from there now as well?). And Enge will have to convince these indy specialty stores that Marcovitch stands behind this, and that this time, in comments about Zoot's future, this company's word is this company's bond.

There is always a push-pull when leverage opportunities present themselves. Will K2 make Zoot a better, bigger brand? Will the quality improve or dissipate? When Reebok bought Tinley apparel in the early 1990s, the brand was crushed. But Martin Franklin, and Jarden Corporation, are experts at maintaining the shine on an acquired brand.

Franklin is an Ironman finisher, and currently an ultramarathoner, finishing among other races the 135-mile Badwater footrace. He invested in Zoot because of the quality of the apparel he was wearing. He—least of all—would like to see Zoot's brand value fade, for personal as well as business reasons. But Zoot is now part of a 25,000-employee conglomerate. Can the brand built from a flower-print design sold to Hawaiian Ironman attendees survive leveraging?

Editor's add: Here's a leverage solution for you. Another of Jarden's brands, Sevylor, could make a decent swim buoy for triathlon race directors. We'll sell them for you on the Slowtwitch site ;-)