want some inside scoops? a lot of people don’t know, but Billabong International Ltd. (Australia’s largest surfwear company), was recently trying to sell the company. TPG Capital offered Billabong $906 million to buy it. Billabong said “no thank you.” along with the company’s board, the founder and largest shareholder Gordon Merchant rejected the offer. instead, he chose to wait it out and in the meantime, close 150 of its 677 stores worldwide by june 2013. and they will also cut 400 jobs. they will also sell 51.5% of Nixon watches (owned by Billabong). that means, things are going to get interesting in the near future. if you have a job with Billabong or Nixon, you better work harder! and if your a sponsored rider by Billabong or Nixon, you better get off your ass and start charging big Pipeline and Backdoor. if i was the team manager, i would know exactly who to keep, and who to let go. it’s pretty simple. hawaii is the proving ground and if you can’t prove yourself here, your career won’t go very far. the surfers these days have to work harder for every dollar but that’s a good thing because my generation of pro surfers got it too easy. lucky for me, i took my job seriously.
anyway, the thing that fascinates me is Gordon Merchant owns 14.8% of the stocks for Billabong. want me to do the math? ok, i will. 14.8% of $906 million (73.3 billion yen) is $134 million (10.9 billion yen). Gordon just turned down $134 million dollars!!!! i guess his heart is still in his company because most people would take the money and run. Billabong’s shares reached a record high of $19 a share in 2007. then fell 90% since then. it’s barely worth $4 a share today. and the bummer is that the economy is expected to go even further down.
but this made me think about something. if somebody offered me $1 million to take over Go-Naminori, now way i would sell. there is just too much heart into this website and not even a million dollars is worth it. but $134 million? SOLD! haha. then i would buy my dream boat and take everybody around the world! then my dream will finally come true!!! haha. somebody wake me up! hearing strories like this make me want to work even harder. Ganbaruzo!
