Martin Hanaka

Golfsmith International Becomes Largest Golf Retailer in the World The combination, announced on May 14, was brought together by OMERS Private Equity and joins two companies that have been serving golfers in North America for more than four decades. Golfsmith was founded in 1967 as a golf catalog business and started developing retail locations outside of Austin, Texas in the 1990s. Golf Town, founded in 1999, quickly set the standard for specialty golf retail in Canada. "We look forward to working with a very strong management team to serve both brands' loyal customers. We believe there is excellent potential

Golf Town and Golfsmith International Holdings announced that they've signed a definitive merger agreement, pursuant to which Golf Town will acquire Golfsmith, for $6.10 per share in cash. This represents a premium of 32.2 percent to Golfsmith stockholders based on the volume-weighted average closing prices of the company common stock on the 30 trading days immediately preceding this announcement. The closing of the acquisition is expected to occur in the third quarter of 2012. Upon the closing of the transaction, Martin Hanaka will assume the role of CEO of the combined company. 

(GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Golfsmith International Holdings, Inc., today announced preliminary financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2011. Fourth Quarter Highlights: Martin Hanaka, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Golfsmith, commented, "While we had a challenging start to our fourth quarter we were pleased to see sales trends improve in November and December. We also achieved a 450 basis-point increase in gross margin to 36.8% in the fourth quarter which was primarily driven by a favorable sales mix shift to higher margin categories." Mr. Hanaka continued, "We have successfully executed on a number of key strategic initiatives

Multichannel Golfsmith customers outspend their single-channel counterparts by a factor of four, according to analysis conducted by the retailer. "If you were a two-channel customer, which could be our catalog, 1-800 number or a web customer, you will spend four times" what a one-channel customer spends, said Golfsmith CEO Martin Hanaka during a recent conference call discussing the retailer's Q3 financial results.

Multi-channel Golfsmith customers outspend their single-channel counterparts by a factor of four, according to analysis conducted by the retailer. "If you were a two-channel customer, which could be our catalog, 1-800 number or a Web customer, you will spend four times" what a one-channel customer spends, said Golfsmith CEO Martin Hanaka during a recent conference call discussing the retailer's Q3 financial results. "If you are shopping us across all the channels you are probably at least 10 times lifetime value to us, so we are trying to cultivate that in every way possible. "We have kiosks in our store,