Sale of third-biggest surfboard co in world to proceed in time for Easter…
On Thursday, April 2, on exactly the same day the prophet Jesus Christ ate his last supper (Maundy Thursday) almost 2000 years previous, Kelly Slater and, one suspects, some kind of consortium, will take full control of Firewire Surfboards.
A few more signatures with a deadline of April 2, y’see, and the deal is sealed.
Firewire, if you didn’t know, is a surfboard brand that builds boards in Thailand, sells ’em for almost $1000 apiece, and counts Michel Bourez as one of its surfers, and Matt “Mayhem” Biolos and Daniel “Tomo” Thomson among its guest shapers.
The original technology contained within those signature Firewire boards that Taj turned the world onto around 2008, was a styrofoam, epoxy, wood veneer sandwich, developed by the Western Australian shaper Bert Burger (Surfing magazine’s shaper of the year in 2007; now the owner of Sunova surfboards).
It was taken to the world by the Western Australian-born shaper Nev Hyman under the Firewire label.
When Clark Foam shut its doors in 2005, Firewire saw a biz opportunity to take the technology to a world suddenly starving, if briefly, of PU blanks. Firewire had the muscle to do it, counting former Billabong GM Dougall Walker and the brains behind the Billabong float Matthew Perrin (although this brain has had its glitches, including pending charges for fraud. Read here) among its original investors.
So it got big. Real big.
Who’s bigger than Firewire? Channel Islands, yeah, Lost, JS, maybe Hayden shapes, and that’s it. I’m saying it sits in third behind CI (who’s way ahead) and Lost.
Ask around the various store chains, industry players, and you’ll get a figure of around 20,000 boards sold a year at just under a grand apiece. Sell ’em wholesale at around 600 and you’ve got a 12-million a year biz.
After costs, let’s give it a profit of $1.5 million. Street value of the biz? Around four mill. At least, four mill, if it were a bank or Warren Buffett doing the buying.
But then there’s Kelly who has the unique ability to really take the brand somewhere, to give it a legitimacy it sometimes struggles with. If the 12-mll a year biz turns into a 30-mill a year biz, it wouldn’t be out of shape to imagine Kelly (and pals) dropping five or six into the can.
Anyway, in just under two weeks, the press release will drop.
Tell me, does the spectre of Kelly Slater zooming hither and thither on his segway around the company’s south-east Asian factory, iPhone 6 Maxi holstered on his belt, as he refines the Firewire product, stir its finger in your vitals?
http://www.worldsurfleague….
The world’s most popular sporting league is shamelessly stealing news from you, Chaswick..
Any of you other lurking kiwis thinking about the cricket right now, I went down to my local carvery to watch with the final stages with the cooks, I’m not sure why but it felt like the thing to do.
Call me unpatrotic but I just don’t vibe on cricket. I’m more excited about the prospect of Ricardo Christie actually getting a few waves on the “surf league tour” this year.
Come on now, that was sport at its best, better than any thirty minutes of priority switches and safety turns.
I honestly hate myself for saying this but Kelly may be enough for me to buy a Firewire. Fuck.
Tell me about the Wizard Sleeve you currently own…
Man way to stick the knife in to a person who just turned 41 today, anyway I’ve yet to buy a CI, this middle aged man has local shapers sitting in the rafters at present, although I have dabbled with Rusty’s (Aido shaped, awesome). DHD, ok but gave it away to a waiter at my hotel in Bali, I did have a pro’s CI a couple of years ago but it psyched me out even though I scraped all the stickers off so I gave that away too, I surfed it once, I spent more time scraping the stickers off than surfing it, if Merrick himself made me one then yes I would.
Merrick don’t shape! There’s a world of anonymous shapers there in Carpinteria. So much never-to-be-revealed talent. The factory, honestly, is magical. Think Willy Wonka and his loyal little coloured people.
Exactly right, so many ghosts, many who have their own label that you can buy a board off for two or three hundred bucks less. Had a mate who was a pro, sponsored by one of Australia’s most well known and even his boards were ghost shaped.
$1K for a board that will last 4-5 years easy…? Done. Granted I did crack a rail with my dome, but they are pretty sturdy. I have many friends who ride the sweet/baked potatoes as their grovelers and it seems to work, but I would stick to a local shaper for boards used in waves of consequence.
no.