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.
[Link: Media Biz Ne]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
In a time when stories rarely make it into action sports magazines without first being vetted by the companies who paid for the trips it’s interesting to follow Scott Bass’s Surfermag.com story of Owl Chapman’s lawsuit against The Surfer’s Journal.
Apparently, Owl wasn’t happy with the way he was characterized in a Jeff Johnson story featured in the August/September 2006 issue of TSJ titled, “El Hombre Invisible (With Apologies to William S. Burroughs) An Owl Chapman Story.” He was so angry that he filed suit in Oahu Federal court. Here’s what Owl is upset about:
According to the court, “The Article as a whole–while a personal, narrative account fraught with descriptive, figurative language–generally implies that (1) Johnson ordered a surfboard from Plaintiff and (2) Plaintiff failed to deliver the surfboard on time as promised, took Johnson’s money up front and then deliberately avoided him for approximately two months, and failed to craft the surfboard to Johnson’s specifications.” . . . Specifically Chapman’s lawsuit claims that, “A ridiculously extreme portrait (indeed a most sinister caricature) of plaintiff emerges that casts him in a false light —- and which, further, points to a grandiose egotist who is mean-spirited, self-serving, full of braggadocio, impossibly arrogant and in the end, a degenerate, pathetic and drug-addled social outcast.”
Wait, isn’t that how it always is when buying a custom shaped board from a genius shaper?
[Link: Surfermag.com via LionizePR]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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.
[Link: MarketWatch]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
It was a swatch of fabric advertising Dane Reynold’s new Quiksilver trunks, but it gave Nikii Swiss an idea. Hey, maybe all hot girls aren’t dumb. . .
Oh, and if we had a favorite frame of this Youtube.com video you’d see it after the jump. . .
[click to continue…]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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’.”
[Link: Goldcoast.com.au]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Last month we mentioned that the US Army Corp of Engineers was doing some clean up on two New Jersey beaches. According to a story in Press of Atlantic City, they found exactly what they were looking for.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Tuesday that a cleanup of munitions on beaches starting Jan. 26 has unearthed 453 potentially explosive items – almost half of what was previously found since a beachfill project was completed more than two years ago. On Feb. 10, the Army Corps said it had found only 20 items. By March 3, that number had increased more than 20 times.
The Mayor of Surf City is glad the explosives are being removed, but hope the Army can finish up before summer. “I’m glad they’re here doing this, but I just want them to get it done. They only have a few months’ window,” Mike Parascandolo said. “Memorial Day weekend is a good weekend, and they should be out of here – that’s what they say.”
[Link: PressofAtlanticCity]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
British surfer and freelance writer Alex Wade, the author of the book Surf Nation, has been nominated for the UK’s “Sports Journalists’ Association Sports Feature Writer of the Year award” according to a story in This Is Cornwall.
Alex, who was shortlisted for three stories, two on surfing and one on boxing, says he was ‘stoked’ to be nominated. . . “I’d forgotten all about the awards, and didn’t for a moment think I’d be nominated,” he said. “But it’s also true to say that this year there were a record number of entries for the awards, owing to the number of staff journos having been laid off thanks to the credit crunch.
Wade is up for a national writing award and the local paper still puts his stoked in quotes. . . classic.
[Link: This Is Cornwall]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
You’d think a guy who wanted to create “a landmark statue” of Kelly Slater for Cocoa Beach would have thought a little about funding it before getting started. Not Sam Drazich. According to a story on Florida Today the statue is going to cost $100,000 and Sam has raised nothing so far.
“I guess we’ve probably raised about 30 or 40 bucks,” laughed Drazich, a weekend surfer whose family grew up in the city. “I’m just hoping someone is going to come through, big. The next stage will probably require a loan.”. . . At 6 tonight at Rusty’s Seafood Restaurant at Port Canaveral, a fund-raiser will take place, with free hors d’oeuvres, drink specials, entertainment and surf art by Bruce Reynolds, who will donate part of his sales.
Someone, please help Sam out.
[Link: Florida Today]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
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.
[Link: The Australian and Herald Sun]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Artist, photographer, filmmaker Thomas Campbell’s newest surf film The Present will be premiering Friday March 6 & 7, 2009 at the world famous La Paloma Theater in Encinitas, California with two showings each night at 7 and 9 PM with special musical guests The Mattson 2 & Ray Barbee.
Featured sliders include Patagonia ambassadors Dan Malloy, Chris Malloy, Fletcher Chouinard and Devon Howard, with Dave Rastovich, Chelsea Georgenson Hedges, Michel Junod, Joel Tudor, Kassia Meador, Alex Knost, Rob Machado, Dane Reynolds and others.
Tickets are available at the Patagonia store in Cardiff, CA. For more dates on the North American moive tour click the link.
[Link: Trim Your Life Away via Surflne]
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
