These firms have a negative stance due to possible weaker backlogs, margin pressure from higher sourcing costs, and tighter retailer inventory management, and a more challenging U.S. retail environment.  They believe Columbia’s top line growth and gross margins could be further negatively impacted by these growing pressures.  Despite the Company’s perfect balance sheet, these firms believe that the stock deserves to trade at a discount to net asset value as the fundamental performance of the business will remain underwhelming through 2010.  These firms are of the opinion that COLM is undesirably positioned as a company with impaired brand equity, FX exposure, substantial inventory risk, and material margin risk.