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Re: Bong in big trouble

Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 9:44 am
by el rancho
AAP

Troubled surfwear company Billabong has made a net loss of $860 million with major writedowns and a drop in revenue.

The 2012/13 result was affected by $867 million in significant items, including more than $604 million in writedowns in the value of goodwill, brands and other intangibles.

It also included a $129 million writedown as a result of transactions involving US brand Nixon.

Meanwhile, revenue was down 12.6 per cent, in constant currency terms, to $1.35 billion.

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Billabong's 2012/13 result follows a $276 million loss in 2011/12.

It has been a difficult 12 months for the company, which has been the subject of a number of takeover bids during the year.

The company last month reached a $US294 million ($A325 million) deal with US-based Altamont Capital Partners which will allow it to repay its existing debts.

But two US hedge funds, Centerbridge and Oaktree, have since approached Billabong's board with their own recapitalisation plan, which they say provides Billabong with greater flexibility to address its financial problems.

Billabong has confirmed it its considering the fresh offer.

Billabong chairman Dr Ian Pollard said the task of managing the multiple bids and refinancing proposals had been distracting for the company but, he said, the company had achieved a number of important reforms.

They included progress on efforts to sell Canadian retail chain West 49, cost savings and simplification of its businesses.

"We are nearing the end of a long process that has caused distraction, impacted on staff morale and has been very costly," he said in a statement on Tuesday.

"The company looks forward to refocusing, reinvigorating its brands and rebuilding the business on a solid, long-term financial footing."

© 2013 AAP

Re: Bong in big trouble

Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 10:03 am
by steve shearer
el rancho wrote: Billabong chairman Dr Ian Pollard said

"We are nearing the end of a long process that has caused distraction, impacted on staff morale and has been very costly," he said in a statement on Tuesday.
He sounds nice.

Bet he's a beer drinker and wouldn't be averse to an icy cold XXXX Gold on a summers day.

Pollard could be the man to bring it back to the people.

Re: Bong in big trouble

Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 11:02 am
by Nick Carroll
http://www.smh.com.au/business/earnings ... 2smxx.html

it's a funny world when a company can make sales of well over a billion dollars and still be regarded as fcuked.

Re: Bong in big trouble

Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 11:26 am
by tootr
Nick Carroll wrote:http://www.smh.com.au/business/earnings ... 2smxx.html

it's a funny world when a company can make sales of well over a billion dollars and still be regarded as fcuked.

It's called poor management :lol:

Re: Bong in big trouble

Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 6:54 pm
by moondoggie
Last year they lost $275 Million bucks
this year they lost $867 Million Bucks
That is well over a BILLION DOLLARS L O S T

Reminds me of that Kiwi joke,
How do you get a Kiwi to run a successful small business??
Give them a successful Large business.

As soon as I saw that Buzzard, Laura Inman at the helm I new they were fwcked - there was a publicity shot of her holding a surfboard. It may well have been a turd -It just looked so foreign in her wizzened claw. Still they lost a record shipload on her watch and paid her a bonus of 4.6 million dollars. Maybe she could have got herself a bigger bonus if she lost them $2 Billion. :roll:



I can just imagine her in a sensible hat, pruning the roses in Mosman and thinking "dumb surfies" haha what an easy TARGET.
Fashion has changed over the past 25 years ... pretty simple really.

Buzzard !!!!!!!!!!
8)

Re: Bong in big trouble

Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 8:54 pm
by alakaboo
So they had a net loss of 860mill, and they had sales of $1.35 billion and significant items of $867mill

How do you have sales of $1.35 billion for only 7 million in profit?

Interestingly, in 2007/08 they had exactly the same global sales figure, but profit of $176.4 million

Re: Bong in big trouble

Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 9:21 pm
by tootr
alakaboo wrote:So they had a net loss of 860mill, and they had sales of $1.35 billion and significant items of $867mill

How do you have sales of $1.35 billion for only 7 million in profit?

Interestingly, in 2007/08 they had exactly the same global sales figure, but profit of $176.4 million
All due respect, learn basic accounting....

Re: Bong in big trouble

Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2013 9:32 pm
by alakaboo
Um, no, I'd rather eat the lint from the dryer.

I just took this from the article Nick linked to
Some guy who knows basic accounting wrote:The profit before write-downs of $7.7 million
What was the mistake?

Re: Bong in big trouble

Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 6:12 am
by Nick Carroll
You lose $860m by writing off the last of the value of your brands.

Though how brands that helped drive $1b plus in global sales can fairly be described as worthless I dunno.

You will note in the same period as this overall sales decline of 12% occurred, Billabong also closed over 140 specialty stores worldwide. The possibility that those closures may have had an effect on sales doesn't seem to have crossed any of the newpapers' minds yet.

I bet it is uppermost in Altamont's and the competing hedge funds' minds though. Once one of them gets hold of Bong, all the hard shit will have been done.

Re: Bong in big trouble

Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 10:20 am
by steve shearer
moondoggie wrote:
As soon as I saw that Buzzard, Laura Inman at the helm I new they were fwcked - there was a publicity shot of her holding a surfboard. It may well have been a turd -It just looked so foreign in her wizzened claw. Still they lost a record shipload on her watch and paid her a bonus of 4.6 million dollars.
it's just beautiful corporate artistry.......and the fcuking brands wonder why they lost the goodwill of surfers long, long ago.
Well, that little strategy worked well for them didn't it. Turns out when they lost the core support they'd lost everything.

Sheeesh.....close a bunch of stores, sack hundreds, pay advisors 23m in fees and then walk away with a golden multi-million dollar handshake.
Bet the sacked Bong employees feel absolutely wonderful about that.

Re: Bong in big trouble

Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 1:35 pm
by moondoggie
Yep Loofy but this is the Corporate "Gravy Train" , Pass the sauce and carve your bit out of the carcass.
$40mill + could have been added to the bottom line if they had just forgone the Laura experiment and the consultants.
Laura & co didnt change the end result, they're still getting carved up.

Employees are just collateral damage, and things may be just about to get a lot worse for the workers... :( :x

8)

Re: Bong in big trouble

Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 2:47 pm
by el rancho
comment on a fairfax article:
I went in to a Billabong store a few years ago and they were asking $80 for a pair of shorts! And they were gaudy with big logos plastered all over them like it was the 90's. The surfwear fad is over, these companies rode the wave and should know that the bigger the wave the bigger the wipeout.

Commenter
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Date and time
August 27, 2013, 3:38PM

Re: Bong in big trouble

Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 2:56 pm
by Nick Carroll
I remain vaguely amused at all the brilliant business minds out there in Comment World -- deep wells of wisdom on everything from global trends to debt leveraging etc

Maybe they should go to work for Altamont Capital Partners.

Re: Bong in big trouble

Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 3:17 pm
by pinhead
Nick Carroll wrote: Maybe they should go to work for Altamont Capital Partners.
Maybe they all do! The way they've been talking the stock down.

Re: Bong in big trouble

Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 5:13 pm
by Karlos
steve shearer wrote:
moondoggie wrote:
As soon as I saw that Buzzard, Laura Inman at the helm I new they were fwcked - there was a publicity shot of her holding a surfboard. It may well have been a turd -It just looked so foreign in her wizzened claw. Still they lost a record shipload on her watch and paid her a bonus of 4.6 million dollars.
it's just beautiful corporate artistry.......and the fcuking brands wonder why they lost the goodwill of surfers long, long ago.
Well, that little strategy worked well for them didn't it. Turns out when they lost the core support they'd lost everything.

Sheeesh.....close a bunch of stores, sack hundreds, pay advisors 23m in fees and then walk away with a golden multi-million dollar handshake.
Bet the sacked Bong employees feel absolutely wonderful about that.
Friend of mine has a theory that there's a club that the CEOs of really big companies are members of. It's a club that once you're in, you cannot get kicked out of, no matter how fcuked you are at running one of these companies. The companies can lose billions on your watch yet you'll be let go with a multi-million dollar handshake to go on to another company and do it all over again. When you are in the club you don't have to worry about shit like performance, just watch the money and stock options flow into your greasy little hands because YOU ARE IN THE CLUB. Sol Trujillo, all the Wall Street types, Laura Inman, etc. They're all in the club.

And we're not.

Re: Bong in big trouble

Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 7:29 pm
by Beanpole
They were discussing it on 702 this morning. Basically covered what everyone has said on here.
I mean apart from the Mambo Phenomenon Bong still has some core business in the provision of quality actual surf equipment.
Back to basics.

Re: Bong in big trouble

Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 8:11 pm
by jimmy
The quality of their surf equipment is questionable at best.

Re: Bong in big trouble

Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2014 3:25 pm
by brendo