(Image source from: Wolverine Worldwide will close 100 more stores})

Michigan based footwear giant, Wolverine Worldwide will close its another 100 stores in this year,  in response to a difficult global retail and consumer environment. The company has closed 104 stores in the previous year.

While discussing fiscal 2015 results, the Rockford footwear manufacturer announced the closures this week. Michael Stornant, the chief financial officer, said that, over 50 percent of the 2016 closures will come as leases run out on storefronts. The details about the names of the stores and dates of closure did not provided by the company officials.

Blake Krueger, the Chief Executive Officer, said that, "performance of our retail stores has improved significantly and we're encouraged about the direction of the business today."

2015 annual revenues of the company slipped 2.1 percent to $2.69 billion and profits decreased by 8 percent to $123.2 million over 2014. The footwear giant stopped producing two brands, Patagonia Footwear and Cushe in 2015. Wolverine is focusing to enhance its three biggest brands  Sperry, Merrell and Saucony.

It is investigating its product creation and innovation and the recently rolled out a new Innovation and Design Center focused on the consumer, product design and marketing.Krueger said that, Insights gathered through this work will "play a critical role in influencing the future of the company, directly driving vital growth projects and new technology introductions and fundamentally changing the way we operate."

"You're seeing these kind of wild swings in currency. Most of the world, virtually all of the world, buys its footwear in the U.S. dollars and sells on local currency. So, you can imagine a little bit of a disruption that can happen when the U.S. dollar strengthens 20, 25, 30 percent over a period of only two years," Krueger said.

Nandini