Totally un-gnarly news for surfwear brand Billabong, as huge financial losses over the last year have rendered the company – once the most coveted logo to have plastered on your backpack, boardies or bikini – virtually worthless.
Billabong is facing losses of $859.5 million dollars, as The Age reports: “The dive into the red, bigger than the roughly $560 million loss expected by analysts, was driven by sales collapses across all its key regions – Australiasia, Europe and the Americas – and a weight of impairment charges and write-downs flowing from its struggling surf and streetwear brands.”
Billabong last year posted losses for the first time since going public in 2000, and the changes planned in the Billabong Transformation Strategy announced by CEO Launa Inman at the time appear to have wiped out. The floundering company has been the subject of a corporate bidding war between US financial firms with very serious names like Altamont Capital, Centrebridge and Blackstone, all hoping to seize control of Billabong, which hit a peak of $249 million in profits in 2007. Plans are in place to downsize the company by closing underperforming stores, selling some of the brands it owns, reducing staff in Europe and reducing suppliers.
BIllabong was founded in a flat overlooking Burleigh Heads, Queensland in 1973 by Gordon and Rena Merchant, and has grown to become one of the most iconic youth brands in the world, acquiring plenty of other brands such as Nixon, Element and Von Zipper in the process.
It may be in bad taste, but we just can’t get this song out of our heads:
Via theage.com.au
