Shareholder has terse questions about ailing Skechers' designs. (Wall Street West).

SKECHERS U.S.A. Inc. found itself fending off an angry Wall Street money manager after the Manhattan Beach shoe manufacturer announced that its business was hitting the skids.

During a conference call on July 24, money manager John Gordon of New York-based Deltec Asset Management complained that David Weinberg, Skechers chief financial officer, didn't have enough "sense of urgency" about the company's lackluster performance.

Gordon said Weinberg's pronouncements made him think about the last scene in the film "Thelma and Louise," in which the heroines chose to plummet to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

That day, Weinberg announced that the company lost $2 million for the second quarter ended June 31 while seeing a 56 percent jump in inventories.

Weinberg said that even though he and other Skechers officials understood the company's performance hasn't been "stellar," they didn't feel things required them to be in "a panic mode."

During the call, Gordon asked Weinberg why the company didn't consider scaling back its expansion efforts--which include the launch of two new shoe brands and expansion Canada and Spain--and hand over some of its $41 million cash horde to shareholders.

Weinberg retorted that those initiatives should be given "a chance to mature." After the call, he told the Business Journal that "we probably won't be as aggressive next year as we have been this year. But we're not going to stop the initiatives we're completing."