Business news : Billabong expands retail network substantially in Thailand and re-elected Ian Pollard as company chairman during last shareholder meeting.

Ian Pollard

Billabong expands retail network substantially in Thailand

The Australian surf company might recently have been under more under scrutiny regarding the critical question of its survival, while coverage on Thailand has been dominated by political turmoil rather than investments in the consumer goods sector.

Nevertheless, DKSH, Billabong’s partner in Thailand since last year, is establishing a strong presence for the brand on the local retail scene. The distributor announced the opening of three more stores in the country, in Chiang Mai, Hat Yai and Phuket. As of now, DKSH runs 28 Billabong-branded outlets around the country, of which 15 are in the capital Bangkok. In 2012, when the alliance was formed, DKSH quickly moved to open 19 stores and will have a total of 31 by the end of the year.

Reinventing Billabong: management survives shareholder meeting

The Aussie surf company’s chairman, Ian Pollard, faced a tough fight to secure his re-election at the top of Billabong today. The shareholders finally granted him another term with almost 34 percent of the votes against him and a considerably high number of abstentions. There was an alliance around Coastal Capital International, a U.S. private equity firm holding a 7.6 stake in Billabong, which tried in vain to topple Pollard and two other directors, Howard Mowlem and Sally Pitkin. Neil Fiske, the group’s new chief executive, outlined his ideas to bring the company back on track and suggested that Billabong needs a substantial reduction of its product range by between 25-30 percent.

Furthermore, Billabong needs to re-establish its appeal to younger customers in the 15 – 18 year age group, Fiske said. On the back of this, Billabong’s retail operations are going to be transformed to a unit concentrating on selling core brand products rather than attracting the market as a multi-brand retailer. Fiske estimates that the company’s turnaround may take between 18 months and three years; a considerable loss of jobs is no longer excluded.

Source ISPO