by The Editors on September 27, 2023
Today (September 27, 2023), Jamie Salter’s Authentic Brands Group announced that they have chosen Costa Mesa’s Liberated Brands as the licensee for several of their recently purchased Boardriders brands.
In the deal, Liberated will run retail and e-commerce ops for Quiksilver, Billabong, Roxy, RVCA, Honolua and Boardriders in the US and Canada. They will also act as the official licensee for the Billabong, RVCA, and Honolua brands. The press release makes it seem like they’ve reached outside Authentic Brands to do a licensing deal, when it’s actually more of an inside play. ABG owns a rather large chunk (officially a “minority stake”) of Liberated Brands so they’re basically licensing the brands to themselves while building in a little distance. Here’s how Nick Woodhouse explains it:
“We are thrilled to expand our partnership with Liberated,” said Nick Woodhouse, President and CMO at Authentic. “As evidenced by their focus on the growth of Volcom and Spyder, Liberated’s unwavering commitment to innovation and community engagement makes them the ideal partner to take on Billabong, RVCA and Honolua, as well as the retail operations for the best lifestyle brands inspired by skate, surf and snow. Together, we look forward to implementing our strategic vision for growth and expanding the brands’ presence in the US and Canada.”
Yes, your own business usually makes a great “partner.” Sorting out the facts of this announcement are well above our pay grade, but let’s just say it is always entertaining to see how these businesses shuffle things around. Side note: if you’re a graphic designer, Liberated is looking for a few good people to shape the vision for the brands moving forward. For the official release, click the link.
[Link: Authentic Brands Group]
by The Editors on September 1, 2023
Authentic Brands Group has officially completed its purchase of Boardriders (parent company to most every action sports brand you remember from your youth) for the alleged sale price of $1.25 billion and added a reported $1.4 billion to its annual sales totals, according to a blurb in Women’s Wear Daily.
In March, the brand development, marketing and entertainment firm inked a deal to acquire Boardriders, the parent of Quiksilver, Billabong, Roxy, RVCA, DC Shoes, Element, VonZipper, Honolua and Boardriders, for a reported $1.25 billion. At the time, Authentic had sales of $27.6 billion. . . The company said it would shortly begin to orchestrate its plan to “announce a roster of best-in-class partners around the world to help drive the brands in their next stage of growth.”
And to think, it all started for Jamie Salter with a little company called Kemper Snowboards. Ah, those were the days, weren’t they?
[Link: WWD]
by The Editors on February 24, 2023
The word from Sporting Goods Business is that the hilariously miss-named zombie brand reanimator Authentic Brands Group (controlled by Jamie Salter) is closing in on a purchase of Quiksilver, Billabong, DC Shoes, Roxy, and Element parent company Boardriders, Inc. For those keeping track, this would make Salter the undisputed king of action sports. No one else is even close.
Authentic Brands Group has proposed a new term loan that it plans to use to support a potential acquisition of Boardriders, Inc., according to a report from Moody’s. . . Boardriders, owed by Oaktree Capital Management, has long been rumored to be on the selling block.
ABG already owns Vision Street Wear, Airwalk, and a very large piece of Volcom. And to think, he started out with the lowly Kemper Snowboards. Talk about tenacity in the business world. Someone hand Mr. Salter a medal!
[Link: SGB Online]
by The Editors on February 14, 2022
It’s newsies time. Obviously, this list is overloaded with Olympic content since that’s what snowboarding is up to right now. And Shaun White is the biggest news from Chinaland. Shaun, and the terrible judging. But, oddly, few outlets wrote about that. Censorship? Probably not, but you know the journalists who are visiting China and hope to stay and/or return to the country don’t want to upset the PRC media watchers. Click the link for the list. And get going. This is enough to make it look like you’re working for the rest of the afternoon!
[click to continue…]
by The Editors on September 15, 2021
There’s a question we asked ourselves, while watching The Ultimate Surfer — Is this the pinnacle of surf entertainment? Was merging a group of washed and ok surfers with Survivor the best idea ever conceived by a man formerly employed by Oprah? Then we asked a followup: if we can seriously consider the first question, then what business do we have choosing stories for a long list of important action sporting news? The answer to the second question was is easy. We have no business. None whatsoever. Enjoy!
[click to continue…]
by The Editors on June 16, 2021
Summertime, and the parking it loathsome. Beach is packed, and the tourists are lame. Oh, your Daddy’s tired and your ma is on fire, so sunscreen up little grommet, tighten up your game. Here are the latest news headlines you can use. Yes, we’re still doing this and by hand to boot. Enjoy
[click to continue…]
by The Editors on July 13, 2020
Welcome to the Monday afternoon news list. Most of it is here. Most of it is readable.
And, we did it all for you with not one lick of inane commentary. Click. Read. Enjoy. Stay well. Wear a mask.
[click to continue…]
by The Editors on February 6, 2020
We’d like to think of this as clearing our throats on the snow, surf, skate news front. Some of this has stacked up for months, and by getting it out of our systems we can more quickly get back to a more serious overview of any news that happens moving forward. Play along with us, and follow the jump.
[click to continue…]
by The Editors on November 14, 2019
Call it a beacon of laziness, or a blinding neon sign of boredom, but we’re still at it. Putting up a list of headlines for stories we might have read over the past who knows how many days.
It takes us back to when we were just starting out. Each week we built an HTML page of links with a bit of commentary. Then the commentary took over, and now, it looks like we’re back to just blasting out an occasional list of links for you to chew through all by your lonesome. Just the ebbs and flows of action sporting news dissemination. Enjoy.
[click to continue…]
by The Editors on October 4, 2019
It was only a matter of time before old media sports titan Sports Illustrated felt the bite of digital publishing, and that time was yesterday according to a story in The New York Post.
Zombie brand collector Jamie Salter’s Authentic Brands Group, which purchased the venerable Sports Illustrated brand in May 2019, ended up cutting 40 of the magazine’s 150 staff members on Thursday October 3, 2019 through their contract publisher Maven.
As news of the impending cuts circulated, about three-quarters of the staff signed a petition calling on SI’s new owner, Authentic Brands, to rescind its 10-year licensing deal with digital publisher The Maven, headed by Jim Heckman. . . “The Maven wants to replace top journalists in the industry with a network of Maven freelancers and bloggers, while reducing or eliminating departments that have ensured that the stories we publish and produce meet the highest standards,” read the petition, which was first reported by NPR.
Why is this interesting to us? Well, Mr. Salter was involved with Kemper Snowboards, co-founded Ride Snowboards and, in addition to Sports Illustrated, currently owns Airwalk, Vision Street Wear, and most of Volcom. And if things keep going in this direction he will eventually own everything. Yes, he’s seems to have a knack for reanimating profits from dead brands.
[Link: The New York Post]
