In late August of 2010 Billabong dove in pretty hard on retail in general and Canadian retail in specific by purchasing the West 49 chain for $93 million dollars. Over the last three years things have not gone well for neither West 49 nor Billabong and now, according to a story in The Australian, Billabong is trying to sell all 70 stores, even though they still haven’t announced the results of Paul Naude’s take over attempt.
“The business cannot stand still,” a company spokesman said. “We have previously detailed our plans around transformation and global simplification including retail, and where . . . appropriate we will action them.”
As a reminder, Zumiez tossed in an offer to buy West 49 in 2010 and many are already speculating that they might be in line to pick up some Canadian stores at what will likely be a huge discount over their last offer. Guess this is one more bit of Billabong news that we’ll all just have to wait for.
[Link: The Australian]
