• 

  Shop-eat-surf file photo

Ocean Minded is terminating the contracts of some team riders and telling athletes that the San Clemente office is being shut down and that employees are being laid off, according to athletes SES has spoken to.

The footwear brand is owned by Crocs Inc., which announced a business improvement plan to the stock market in July. The company plan included streamlining the global product and marketing portfolio, reducing direct investment in smaller geographic markets, creating a more efficient organizational structure, and closing approximately 75 to 100 Crocs-branded retail stores.

An Ocean Minded spokesman referred all questions to Crocs, which did not answer numerous requests for comment.

Ocean Minded started in San Clemente, Calif. in 1996. The brand promoted an environmental message and the Southern California ocean lifestyle.

Crocs acquired the company in 2007 for $1.75 million in cash, plus a potential earn-out of up to $3.75 million based on Ocean Minded hitting certain earnings targets over a three-year period.

Ocean Minded accounted for a very small piece of Crocs’ overall revenue. Crocs recorded annual revenue of $1.2 billion in 2013.

More recently, Ocean Minded faced challenges in a crowded core sandal market, according to the ActionWatch same store retail panel. Ocean Minded recorded a sales decline of over 20% in sandals for the January-August 2014 time period compared to the same period last year. The brand slipped down to under a half point of market share, which ranks Ocean Minded below the top 15 brands in the category.