Looks like the bad economy wasn’t the only thing causing problems in the financial world of former Billabong CEO Matthew Perrin. The Sydney Morning Herald is now reporting that Perrin had at least $1.7 million AUS in gambling debts last year before everything went down.
The debts of the former high-flying Billabong chief executive include $800,000 to the Centrebet boss, Con Kafataris, $300,000 to Flemington bookie Frank Hudson and $160,000 to one of Victoria’s biggest bookmakers, Alan Eskander.
According to a list of Australia’s biggest brands compiled by Interbrand, Billabong is number eight. They are right after ANZ Bank and ahead of St. George. Sadly, out of the top 20 Australian companies we only recognized four. Since we’ve heard of Telstra, that makes Billabong the number two Australian brand in the Boardistan rankings.
Not that we want to continue on the bad news program, but Zumiez same store sales for the month of February were down, according to a press release on Market Watch:
Zumiez Inc. . . .announced the company’s comparable store sales decreased 13.4% for the four-week period ended February 28, 2009, versus a comparable store sales decrease of 2.6% in the year ago period ended March 1, 2008. Total net sales for the four-week period ended February 28, 2009 increased 0.2% to approximately $23.1 million, compared to approximately $23.1 million for the four-week period ended March 1, 2008.
Turns out people are only buying what they need these days. And apparently, they don’t need T-shirts with advertising all over them. To hear someone read the above quote please call (585) 295-6795.
Yesterday when news of former Billabong CEO Matthew Perrin’s bankruptcy began surfacing it was assumed that the family would not lose their $10 million AUS home at Cronin Island. Now, that’s not looking so clear, according to a story on Goldcoast.com.au.
Insolvency and Turnaround Solutions director Julie Williams, the controller of both companies, said the family’s personal assets, including a huge mansion at Cronin Island, ‘could be on the line’. . . . She said Mr Perrin’s wife, Nicole, a director of one of the companies, was guarantor for one on of the loans.
Whoops. . . The worst is in the stats: “The former Billabong CEO and BRW Rich List regular, who was worth about $150 million last year, owes at least $28 million to ‘banks and Chinese investors’.”
He was described as a “whizkid Gold Coast lawyer who made his fortune in the public float of the Billabong surfwear group” but yesterday Matthew Perrin (pictured right in a 1996 photo) “filed for personal bankruptcy with Insolvency Trustee Service of Australia” according to as story in The Australian.
Mr Perrin and his family, which includes three children, live in a double-block mansion at the exclusive Cronin Island on the Gold Coast, worth more than $10 million, which is not included in the list of his assets. . . .”The house is not in this,” Mr Starkey said, noting that “most solicitors put their houses in their wife’s name”. . . .A statement issued yesterday by Mr Perrin’s solicitors, Minter Ellison, said the bankruptcy had been triggered by “the significant investment made by Mr Perrin and those entities that he controls in a supermarket and property group located in the Xian and Hunan provinces in China over a period of more than three years.”
Looks like Mr. “Noexcuses” has a couple pretty good ones now. It is nice to know that this time his financial foibles have nothing to do with Billabong.
Malakye.com, the action sports job site that is difficult to pronounce and even more difficult to spell has an interview with Shop-Eat-Surf.com founder Tiffany Montgomery in their Industry Profile section. Here’s a little bit of the story behind the site:
The site started as an experiment. Given the cutbacks at newspapers and in journalism in general, I thought there was room for a news site. Originally, I planned to write about the business of retail, the business of restaurants and the business of the surf industry based in Orange County – basically, what I covered in my last reporting beat at the paper. That’s why the site has a strange name. . . . The surf and larger action sports industry was so responsive from the get go, I quickly dropped the other topics. And, I liked the stories in the surf industry the best. I still am amazed that this group of people with basically no business experience was able to build a globally influential industry by following their passion.
Ms. Montgomery is obviously an avid and skilled reporter who keeps very close tabs on what goes on behind Orange County’s Velcro Curtain. The site is updated hourly and is a much needed source for industry news. She does it all so politely and professionally, however, that we rarely find anything compelling to read.
In the latest of a string of bizarreannouncementsto come out of Redmond, Washington Microsoft is now launching a clothing line called Softwear (get it?) that:
” . . . taps the nostalgia of when PCs were just starting to change our lives. With retro logos, classic photos and geek-chic igonography, these pieces showcase the DOS days of the software company that now connects over a billion people.”
The clothing will be sold at the seemingly recession proof Urban Outfitters and is being designed in collaboration with the rapper Common. There certainly is no worse time to launch a clothing line.
Quiksilver, among the first tenants in the Hillwood project, would be closing sooner than later, as word was the place would go days without posting a single sale. Well, that sooner is now — actually, February 22.
It’s sad to see dreams die. Then again, it’s only one store and there are at least 400 more where that one came from.
