Is Australian bank offloading fin pioneer Surf Hardware?
You can react two ways to the merciless and aggressive greed of the biz world. Either crave, pointlessly, for less rapacity or you can marvel at the ability of those who can grab a co with potential, polish it a little, and offload it at fantastic profit.
“Vulture Investors” Oaktree Capital Management, which owns 19 per cent of Billabong and now controls Quiksilver Inc after its recent bankruptcy, is one company very good at this kind of biz.
Pals in the share game tell me the new, leaner, debt-free Billabong has never been a better buy, thanks to Oaktree.
Last month, it was reported that the plan was to combine to the two surf co’s.
Surf Hardware, aka FCS, meanwhile, is in the process of being sold, at least according to a recent phone call I received. Now, if y’aint au fait with the biz and its importance to our surf game, maybe y’should.
In the early 1980s, Bill McCausland and two partners founded the company Fin Control Systems. It grew. We all started buying boards with plugs in ‘em. Along came a raft of removable-fin imitators.
It all went pear-shaped when the new company’s CEO and McCausland didn’t, uh, get along. The company sacked McCausland but, wait, he had thirty per cent of the company. A receipt for harmony, yes? But, no.
Shit went downhill. I glaze over at this kinda stuff. But read it all here.
Ten years of court battles followed. Read about the case here.
Anyway, looks like McCausland came out of it with a few mill. Enough to keep the wolves at bay, but maybe tough to swallow when y’hear the biz is rumoured to be sold for $160 million, and your share would’ve peeled you off $50 million.
I called FCS for a comment, got a nice enough accounts guy who refused to comment either way but obfuscated enough to make me think, yeah, the sale is under way.
And we’ll find out if it’s true soon enough.
Commented on Disqus? Log out, tap the Disqus button, and your old name and comments come back. The box is ours.
Your comments are still here. Every one of them.
Twelve years of BeachGrit comments came across from Disqus. Connect and we will show you how many are yours. We get your username, nothing else.
Connect Disqus to reveal.
“fin pioneers” — not so much. There was a company called Multifin Systems Ltd who were making removable fin boxes as far back as 1982. The price of fins is absurd, it’s about time that whole sham was disrupted.
Mac Bank have been trying for a while to get rid of FCS, but were waiting for the right price, and it seems they have it. Also now FCS is profitable due to the resurgence with FCS II largely due to people having to replace fins that fall out
Just a quick Hooray for Billabong, whose shares got a serious flogging yesterday on the back of an unforecasted decline in North America, among a few other things. Don’t reckon there’ll be a swift rush to a fantastically profitable offload there.
…even better time to buy! Who can forget the eighteen-dollar highs!
surely you mean “accumulate”
on a different note i just read about this joint Regencia, Lihares. Surfers in this town gunna be bummed.
What happens in this town?
fuck all now
An epic but now very toxic river mouth..
Didn’t whitty design the 1 st plugs , and then have to sue Bill , who then sued Mc Quarrie bank , and now the Bank is selling FCS to…is it another big fin Co , as this was the rumor in Sept in Socal?
…or a company with French origins?
oxbow?
Their marketing screams “ageing boardroom suits”
probably fucked over the accounts guy quite badly here