"With a projected turnover of over three-bill from
its pretty little canvas shoes and branded trinkets in 2023, Vans
has enough cash to buy ‘em all a few times over."
Hot little rumour going around, pretty close source etc,
is that Billabong, Quiksilver and RVCA have been offered to the
multi-billion dollar shoe company Vans in what we’re told
is an attractively priced package.
With a projected turnover of over three-bill from its pretty
little canvas shoes and branded trinkets in 2023, Vans has enough
cash to buy ‘em all a few times over, as well as throw in a
million-dollar bonus here and there to get the deal over the
line.
Quiksilver, Billabong and RVCA all operate under the umbrella
Boardriders Inc, majority owned by Oaktree Capital, an American
global asset management firm.
Of course, Vans, which was founded by the late, great Pauly Van
Doren in 1966 with his little bro James and their pals Gordon, Ryan
Emmert and Serge D’Elia, ain’t much diff, ownership wise.
It was bought in 2004 by VF Corporation, a behemoth in rude
fiscal health that owns fifty percent of the US backpack market via
its brands North Face, Timberland, Eastpak and JanSport.
The sale is neither here nor there, I suppose, giant corpos
tossing their assets around, but ain’t it wild that in the span of
twenty years, the rocks upon which modern surf culture was founded,
in Billabong and Quiksilver’s case, have become little more than a
logo with a bit of residual goodwill.
RVCA is an interesting one, its co-founder Pat Tenore, one of
the canniest in the biz, turned the surf brand into a pivotal
player in MMA, then sold out for thirty-seven
mill, having bought out the other founder, Conan
Hayes, a well-known man in election circles, for seven and a half
mill in 2011.
