Cookie wrote:That whole "Somewhere" concept is just fu.cking brain dead if you ask me.
Yet apparently they haven't.
Cookie wrote:Makes you wonder how far from the core surfing values these behemoths have now gone?
I suspect we're all about to find out.
Surfers are gonna keep surfing happily away right through the recession or whatever...we might all scrimp a bit but we'll still buy a board and a wetsuit.
But for all the non-surfers ...well those $80 boardshorts and various accessories are looking v much like a discretionary purchase...perhaps the labels alone won't be worth what they have been.
Surf companies, surf shops, etc who've become increasingly exposed to trends among non-surfers are gonna feel the whip a lot harder than, say, a good surfboard maker.
Quik just got punched in the face worse than any surf company in history, thanks to a reckless lunge into that very exposure. $510m? And the rest! Do you think they bought Rossignol with their own cash? I bet Alan Green wants to skin the bloke in charge of that fantastic purchase. But like so many artful dodgers of the corporate world, he's since safely "left the company".
Even harsher, Quik's big (and unavoidable) spread into retail stores exposes them further to a downturn in retail sales in the USA, and the stock analysts aren't letting 'em forget it either.
You guys might think it's funny but there's a lot of your fellow surfers working in Quik and elsewhere who aren't gonna be laughing quite so hard in the coming months, when the company is forced to shed staff. Yeah that's right, you're laughing at job losses; actual real ones, not 10% cuts in team contracts.
Billabong and Rip Curl are positioned a bit differently, Bong has not suffered the same kicks to their share price in the past three months and it's mostly because the company is running a clean and fairly tight ship - and isn't carrying horrible debt loads thanks to the purchase of a s**thouse business. The Curl are in the (currently) fortunate position of being privately held still, and thus don't have to report to the public, nor rely on share issues to raise capital ... and they also run a tight ship, probably tighter than anyone.
How all this will affect the surf "culture" over the next two years is anyone's guess, you'd hope for the best (ie a resurgence of focus on cookie's "core values"? something unexpected and exciting?), but it won't be all terrific stuff ... not unless the waves get really good. 'Cause good waves always help.
