Struggling surfwear brand Billabong is a bit like the Australian Greens – it appeals to the youth market, but its leaders are mature-aged.
Slides of teenage swimwear models holding surfboards and strolling along the beach were flashed on big screens at the company’s annual general meeting on the Gold Coast this week.
But the Billabong board members sitting in front of the sunny images were grey haired.
Younger looking people were a rare sight among a room full of retirees at the Sofitel Hotel.
Billabong itself, which turns 39 this year, is almost middle aged.
After addressing her first AGM as chief executive Launa Inman, a former senior manager at Target, stressed that Billabong was cool, citing commissioned market research.
“It was absolutely clear that it is perceived as a youth brand,” she told reporters.
“The majority of our people that buy the brand is between the age 14 and 29.”
She added, however, that some people in their forties were still “wearing the brand”.
“They absolutely love it and it’s part of the heritage and the authenticity that has come from when they were wearing it themselves in their youth,” she said.
In some ways, Billabong is like a middle-aged man who can’t let go of the past.
Gordon Merchant, who founded the company in 1973, stirred the ire of shareholders after he advised the board he sits on to reject takeover bids from US private equity group TPG.
Billabong’s biggest shareholder was in the room as angry shareholders demanded to know why the board turned down TPG’s $854 million proposition in February, when it offered $3.30 a share.
In October, Billabong’s share price collapsed to a then record low of 83.5 cents after TPG withdrew its second offer of $695 million without publicising the reason.
The Gold Coast-based company’s market value has been slumped by 35 per cent since mid-February to about $412 million.
Merchant was re-elected to the Billabong board, with 68 per cent support, but 31 per cent of proxy voters wanted to dump him, in the same way a rogue wave dumps a surfer.
Fronting his last news conference as chairman Ted Kunkel cut Ms Inman off when a journalist asked her if it had been a mistake for the Billabong board to reject TPG’s offer, before she became CEO in May.
“I just think that’s an unreasonable question,” Mr Kunkel said.
“Laura wasn’t there.”
But he said the board would “stand ready to engage” with a future suitor.
It was left to Ms Inman to explain that while Billabong had experienced board members, the company had “very, very talented young people”.
“Many of them actually partake in the industry whether it be skating, skiing, snowboarding or actually surfing and those are the people who are very connected into the whole tribe of what we stand for,” she said.
Like Billabong another youth-oriented tribe, the Australian Greens, recently changed leaders, switching from its 67-year-old founder Bob Brown to Christine Milne, who is nearly 60.
As with the political party that appeals to the young and idealistic, Billabong’s popularity is waning.
