Shares in Billabong have plummeted more than 21% since chief executive, Derek O’Neill, cut his profit outlook yesterday and said the worldwide retail gloom was the worst he had ever seen. . . .Stocks fell 18% to $8.20 yesterday, the largest decline since it listed eight years ago. Billabong’s share price was down more than 3% to $7.94 at 12.50pm today.
These kinds of stories really aren’t news any longer, but we’re going to keep posting them for historical purposes.
A goofy footer finally wins Sunset after 11 years of regular foot domination. Props to Surfing Magazine’s Evan Slater for actually writing an original story for this event and not simply posting an ASP press release.
And in the dying minutes, we watched in awe as CJ Hobgood, the lone goofyfoot of the final, positioned himself perfectly for the wave of the day, dropped beyond vertical a la Munga Barry in 1994, then bottom turned for a massive arc, an 8.5, a standing O from the crowd, and the win. “You never know what you need or where you are in the heat out there,” said CJ, who became the first goofyfoot to win at Sunset since Mike Rommelse in 1997. “It was, like, ‘Bro, you ripped out there. No, bro you ripped out there.’ We all thought the other guys killed it.”
In the on-going South African legal feud between “wealthy Knysna socialite” Lesley Young and her former surfer boyfriend Ian Macdonald it appears that the surfer has ridden one wave to the beach. Macdonald, who co-founded the world famous Durban 500 surf contest in 1969, has won a defamation case again Young who “falsely accused him of poisoning her.”
After a seven-year romantic stint with her surfing beau, Lesley Young, a breeder of Arabian horses and widow of an apartheid-era homeland minister, must now pay Ian McDonald R160000 [$16,000], and legal and other costs.
But that’s not the half of it. Macdonald, whom Young dumped in May for 2006, is still suing Young for half of her R30 million [$3 million] estate and in another case has made a R280000 [$28,000] claim that Young has “wrongfully and maliciously … launching a false and unfounded application for a protection order … against him.” Which reminds us: money and power causes brain damage.
Billabong is letting investors know that for the second straight year their first-half earnings-per-share are going to fall according to a story on Bloomberg.com.
Slowing demand in the U.S. “has accelerated throughout November,” Gold Coast-based Billabong said in a statement today. The company cut its forecast for annual EPS growth between 6 percent and 10 percent in the year ending June, down from an October prediction for a rise of as much as 16 percent. . . . The reduced annual EPS forecast comes less than six weeks after Billabong raised earnings expectations citing a slump in the Australian dollar.
It appears the U.S. economy is causing more problems than a slumping Australian dollar can make up for.
Bruce Jenkins kicks down details from last weekend’s first winter swell at Maverick’s in the San Francisco Chronicle. With talk of perfect sunny skies, monster waves and Greg Long’s serious hold down, it looks like things are off to a good start.
By Sunday morning, crystal-clear with a stiff offshore wind, Maverick’s was a sight to behold. Giant waves pulsed through the reef without a drop of water out of place. “Maybe the most photogenic day we’ve ever had,” said Washburn, likening the scene to the weeklong swell in December of 1994 (the one that killed big-wave star Mark Foo two days before Christmas). “It was stunning all day, but when the wind dropped and the tide went out in the late afternoon, it was basically as good and perfect as anyone could recall.”
The Daily Pilot, “serving Newport Beach & Costa Mesa, California” has discovered that RVCA is moving into a new space next month (the old Paul Frank space) and they did something we didn’t do last month: they got the low-down straight from founder Pat Tenore.
His determination to stay on the Westside of Costa Mesa — a location that has served as an incubator for several of the biggest surf and skateboard fashion companies in the country — led him to the 70,000-square-foot Paul Frank building less than a mile from his present address. . . . “We want to stay close to where we started and close to the beach,” Tenore said. “And it’s really hard to find a building in this area because a lot of the area is being turned into residential.”
Romance novelist Jane Porter was recently divorced, 40, and on her own in Hawaii when she met Oahu surf school owner Ty Gurney. That meeting became the start for a novel (Flirting With Forty), a made-for-TV movie (staring Heather Locklear), and a child who is due in May.
“There was this surfer guy walking by — oh, my God!” Porter recalled. “He was tattooed, with a bulldog just above his board shorts. He was very young. He was incredibly good-looking. He was exactly the kind of person I am not attracted to. I was a little afraid of him.” . . . Porter had her novel’s final plot element — the alluring surfer and the dilemma he would present: “Should a woman stay on the road previously traveled? Or be brave enough to follow a road not traveled?”
Apparently, that whole Waikiki beach boy thing still can pay off for everyone involved.
Layne Beachley and INXS musician Kirk Pengilly (pictured right with his daughter) are now officially engaged.
The couple have been holed up in Hawaii for the past week enjoying Thanksgiving celebrations while Beachley prepares to compete in the Roxy Pro Tour next week. But on Thursday, Pengilly used the sands of Hawaii’s Sunset Beach to spell out his grand intentions. . . . In broad letters decorated with the island’s native hibiscus flower, he wrote simply, “Marry Me”. A bottle of champagne served as the necessary punctuation.
Pengilly, described by The Daily Telegraph as a “serial bachelor,” has been married once before and has one 20-year-old daughter April Rose.
