Kennelbach, Austria (Ski Press)-Head’s offseason World Cup stable stocking continues at a record pace, and the company also released some encouraging news about the state of its snow-based sales.

Maria Riesch, who in 2007/2008 had the most successful season of her career, will continue her career with Head through the 2010 Winter Olympic. After two serious injuries she excelled in her come back season. As HEAD athlete she won World Cup crystal twice: both in Super G as well as in the Super Combination. In the overall World Cup she finished the season on rank three. These successes are reason enough to continue the winning cooperation for another two years.

The contract between Maria Riesch and HEAD includes the Olympic season 2009/2010. The Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver are Maria’s long term goal. Maria plans to top the incredible season 2007/2008 with focus on consistency and continuity.

After the recent signing of Rainer Schönfelder and Anja Pärson another top athlete has joined the HEAD Team. The Swedish technical specialist Markus Larsson will, for the next three years, search success on HEAD equipment particularly in Slalom. After the tremendous success of last year’s World Cup, the HEAD Racing Team has with his signing further increased its presence and quality in the technical disciplines.

Markus Larsson started his World Cup career in November 1999 in Vail, CO (USA). Since then he was able to win already two World Cup Slaloms in 2006. Markus was one of the top contenders in 2006/2007 and finished the year on fourth place in the Slalom World Cup. He barely missed winning a medal at the slalom race at the World Championships 2005 in Bormio (ITA). A World Championship Medal is a very realistic goal for the 29 year old.

And in financial snow news, Head reported that:
* Net revenues were up 7.5% to €61.6 million
* Operating loss after the impact of share-based compensation, decreased by €5.5m to €3.4 million from €8.9 million
* The net loss for the period was €3.5 million compared to a €9.6 million loss in Q1 2007.

Johan Eliasch, Chairman and CEO, said, “Following our poor results for 2007, the first quarter for 2008 has been positively impacted by the good conditions experienced during the recent Winter Sport season and the success of our race team. This however has not been fully reflected in the operating profit of the company as a result of lower gross margins in Winter Sports and Diving and higher selling and marketing costs. Overall our operating loss, excluding the share based compensation income and expense, has improved by €0.6m in the quarter.

We feel that the Winter Sports Industry has not fully recovered from the poor season it experienced in 2006/07 and the results in Q1 2008 are not indicative of the full year outcome. Bookings for the 2008/09 season, which will make up the majority of our sales in the Winter Sports Division in 2008, suggest that while we should see an improvement this year, we will not reach sales levels achieved in 2006.

In our other divisions, market conditions are tough due to the current economic climate and the discretionary nature of our products and as a result, for the group, we are currently anticipating an operating loss in the region of that achieved in 2007.“

Winter Sports revenues for the three months ended March 31, 2008 increased by €4.7 million, or 43.2%, to €15.4 million from €10.8 million in the comparable 2007 period. This increase was due to higher sales volumes of all of our winter sports products compared to sales volumes of the first quarter 2007 which were extremely low due to bad snow conditions in the winter season 2006/07 causing lower re-orders.