A Brief Update on Billabong
As you are probably aware, Billabong yesterday published a press release announcing the expected resignation of Launa Inman as CEO and of Paul Naude as a director and employee. It also said that, “Discussions with Scott Olivet regarding his appointment as CEO are continuing but have not been finalised as we await the outcome of the Takeovers Panel’s deliberations.”
In the meantime, Scott is a consultant to Billabong and Peters Myers is acting CEO. You can see the press release here. It’s the first item under “Recent News” called “Billabong Management Changes.”
Scott Olivet is the executive Altamont is bringing in as part of the overall deal with Billabong. One would assume that the deal with Scott was finalized before Altamont’s deal with Billabong was closed since Altamont wants Scott as CEO. You may also recall that Scott was investing a couple of millions of his own dollars in Billabong as part of the deal. I’m guessing here, but I can imagine that maybe Scott doesn’t want to commit his own funds until he knows what the Takeover Panel decides.
The investors who owned Billabong’s debt were paid off by Altamont when the deal with Billabong closed. They appealed to the Australian Takeover Panel because they didn’t like the deal. “Didn’t like” probably means they were hoping for a better deal themselves than just getting paid off.
Here’s a link to the Takeover Panel. When they publish a decision, we’ll be able to see it here. According to the site, “it takes a little over 2 weeks (16 days) for the Panel to make a decision on an application.” The average days from deciding to review to publishing their decision has been about 10 days in 2013. Billabong says it may be a week or more until we have that decision.
Meanwhile, Billabong has announced that their preliminary earnings presentation for the year ended June 30 will be released on August 27th. As I’ve said, I’ll be very interested to see their balance sheet. Seems to me that in the past, they haven’t called it ‘preliminary."
Okay, that’s it. I really wish this wasn’t all going on and that Billabong was just going about business, but it sure is interesting.
Any word on where Paul Naude is going to land?
Also, I see the new Element HQ in Costa Mesa is very nice. Any other brands leaving the Billabong Irvine building as a precursor to something more independent?
Hi Rob,
Even if I had some idea what Paul was going to do, which I don’t, I certainly wouldn’t write anything until he’d announced it. As far as what’s going to happen to other brands, I’ve got no information that isn’t public. As I’ve written, we may get a clue as to what Billabong will do when we see their June 30 balance sheet. I hope they also publish a proforma balance sheet showing the impact of the Altamont deal.
Thanks,
J.
Hey Jeff,
Received your site via coworkers here at Connelly Skis. Thought I would say “hello”!!
Hi Jeff!
Great to hear from you. I’m living in Bellevue and still playing basketball a little. Hope to run into you at some point, perhaps at a trade show.
J.