Investing: "I Lost My Shirt!"

But Nick Woodman lost $1,400,000,000.00! But my shirt was really nice.

I was riding high on a cloud of optimism a few short months ago. “Action sports is a growth industry!” I thought “It bottomed out after years of questionable decision-making (hello, Rossignol!) and now we are all going to ride a rocketship to financial glory!”

And I wanted to join in on the largesse. I wanted to rub shoulders with the big wigs, the hoity-toity, so I threw money at Quiksilver’s (ZQKSQ) stock and at GoPro’s (GPRO) stock and waited for my invitation to ring Wall Street’s opening bell.

Then Quiksilver went bankrupt.

And GoPro shed 50% of its value.

This last one actually took me by surprise. Apparently “market downdraft” and persistent rumors that Apple is going to get into the cam game have shredded GoPro.

Now I’m poor.

But guess who else is poor? GoPro’s CEO Nick Woodman! According to Bloomberg Biz:

Nick Woodman, the billionaire founder of action camera-maker GoPro Inc., has seen his fortune fall $1.4 billion this year…

GoPro is down 53 percent in 2015. Woodman’s net worth is down 46 percent for the year to $1.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, buoyed by cash from sales of GoPro shares. Apple is up about 2 percent this year, according to data collected by Bloomberg.

The decline comes even as the company has sought to expand its reach, including a deal with Toyota Motor Corp. to use GoPro as the on-board camera for its 2016 Tacoma pickups, and the hiring of Hulu’s Charlotte Koh as head of a newly created division to produce features and series.

GoPro’s rout has also hit Woodman’s compensation. He collected $287.2 million last year, mostly in restricted stock, which made him the highest-paid executive in the U.S. One-third of the shares paid out immediately. Another two-thirds were earned based on price targets the company hit in January — the first month of a three year performance period. Those will pay out through June 2017, according to the company’s proxy.

He remains the highest-paid executive in the U.S., according to the Bloomberg Pay Index, though his compensation has fallen to $136.3 million. The second-highest earning U.S. executive, Liberty Global Plc Chairman and CEO Michael Fries, has seen the value of his 2014 pay fall to $119.4 million from $132 million. Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla Motors Inc., is No. 3 with a current value of $115 million.

Nick! If you need to supplement your income, now that you’re poor, you can come work with us at BeachGrit! Like GoPro, we are a fast-paced business with an eye toward year-on-year growth. Also like GoPro, we use Apple products to….oh wait.

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12 Comments

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Nick Carroll

11 years ago

Chas, you really need to spend less on shirts.

Jimmy the Saint

Never understood how GoPro was valued so high, and still can’t see how its worth anything near a billion, on something that can be replicated easily and cheaper! I also really can’t understand where Redbull makes all that money that they spend in sponsorship – they own two F1 teams, do the Felix Baumgartner thing and seems to sponsor every event, Coke don’t do half of that and yet I never see anyone drinking Redbull!