Big Boss Icaro from Micron

Icaro Olivieri was born in Northern Italy. He worked at his father’s tool factory and subsequently went to university and became an engineer and became a valuable asset to his father’s company. In the 1950’s there was a massive explosion of ski resorts. This enabled Icaro to experiment with hinges, springs and molding injection machinery for the production of plastic ski boots. As an engineer, Icaro was practical and intuitive, by establishing universal patents in the ski boot industry. His universal ski boots and technical procedures with metal buckles made Icaro a wealthy man.

Icaro immigrated to Canada and with his new founded wealth built a factory in Montreal. He applied his ski boot knowledge to plastic molded ice skates. However, he wasn’t keen of copying Lange hockey skates. Icaro came out with his own version of a hockey skate branding it the Micro 10-90, 10-70 and 10-50, which became a dominant threat to Bauer and CCM skate markets and distribution channel.

Icaro was persistent. He had an intense competitive drive, similar to the Darwinian theory of survivor of the fittest. Icaro exerted pressure on the competition by allowing his organization to innovate at a quicker pace. Indeed the tension between Bauer and Micron culminated on a merger of the two competitors, instead of Bauer and Micron destroying each other. They agreed on a strategic focus on the sector itself and to dominate it.

Big boss Icaro pushed himself as Chairman of the Warrington Group. The company had notable brand names like Kodiak, Hush Puppies, Bauer, Micron, Lange Ice Skates, Kerma Ski Poles, and Spalding Skies, and Flak Hockey Equipment. The Warrington Group did poorly and many shareholders were angry of the cumulative loses they suffered every year. Finally big boss Icaro purchased the 30% shares from the Bronfman family and renamed the company Canstar Sports. Icaro became the big boss of the Canadian Sporting Goods world. One could often see big boss Icaro flexing his weight at the Montreal hockey show, by purchasing Daoust ice skate business and Cooper Canada.

Big boss Icaro was instrumental in diversifying Canstar Sports to achieve new source of revenue by tapping into the explosive inline market. The inline market was able to peak the interest of Nike. Nike conventional wisdom is that the inline market had sky-rocketing growth potential similar to their shoes. However, Icaro the big boss saw that the inline market was not that big and the presentation of the inline market far exceeded the demand. Icaro sold the company to Nike for $395 million. The inline market collapse and Nike had to lick their wounds and got rid of the company for only $250 million. The inline market became a big bust in the sporting goods industry. The inline market exploded, mature and the consumer psyche shifted back to cycling.

Big boss Icaro was an important figure in the sporting goods industry. He had a highly developed bunker mentality to leverage bigger companies to acquiesce. What made big boss Icaro a legend in the industry was the way he maneuvered with ease against larger companies. As an immigrant he climbed the mountain top and he was shrewd enough to sell Canstar at a premium price. Good for him. I think big boss Icaro only regret is not getting CCM hockey.