Brooke Farris Resigns as Rip Curl CEO
Three years after she accepted the job, Brooke Farris is resigning as CEO of Rip Curl, according to parent company KMD Brands.
The announcement comes two weeks after KMD CEO Michael Daly also resigned.
Like the company head that started life in the mail room, Farris began her time at Rip Curl as a lowly team manager and over fourteen years worked her way up the ladder. In August 2021 she broke the glass ceiling and was appointed CEO of Rip Curl.
At the time it was considered a statement, a sign of the boys club in decline. The promotion certainly matched the times: female attendance was on the rise and greater professional opportunities were available, especially since the WSL began issuing equal prize money.
Farris oversaw the controversy that began unfolding a year ago when Bethany Hamilton - who’d been sponsored by Rip Curl for over twenty years - spoke out against the inclusion of trans women in competitive surfing. This put Rip Curl in an awkward situation as they’d included Sasha Jane Lowerson, a noted trans surfer, in the upcoming summer catalogue.
Shortly after, Hamilton and Rip Curl severed their contract and parted ways. The resultant media frenzy played into the ‘trans in sport’ culture war, with some commenters incorrectly assuming Hamilton had been sacked and replaced by Lowerson (Lowerson was never sponsored by Rip Curl).
Critics noted Rip Curl’s plummeting share price as evidence of them ‘going woke and going broke’. Yet what appeared a simple matter of cause and effect was instead a case of the teller’s tale. It looked and sounded convincing, but it wasn’t true.
In January this year, Rip Curl and Hamilton parted ways and the social media backlash began. First hashtags, then videos of people burning Rip Curl boardshorts, and finally a boycott. It was this, the boycott of Rip Curl’s products, that supposedly explained why Rip Curl was tanking. KMD’s shares* were just $0.70 and falling.
The big picture, however, tells a different story. In the two months after Hamilton spoke out, KMD shares lost $0.15, or 21%.
Yet in the two months prior to Hamilton speaking out, KMD shares lost $0.13, or 18%.
The fact is, since early 2020 KMD shares had been in decline, with the boycott period closely matching the pattern that already existed. In fact, from June to September this year KMD shares rallied, but then fell back to the pre-existing pattern, showing their problem was more complex than a long-forgotten boycott.
Brooke Farris may have been at the helm during the trans faux pas, but that misstep didn’t explain their problem. It may not have even been unique to Rip Curl as all surfwear manufacturers struggled through COVID with the big players now unable to assert themselves in a saturated marketplace.
Unfortunately there’s no get out of jail card for a CEO at an underperforming company. Like a basement-dwelling NRL team, it doesn’t matter what the specifics are, or how much talent is on the field, the buck stops at the top. Out with the old coach, in with the new.
“After fourteen years at Rip Curl, and over three of those in the CEO role, the time feels right for a break and new opportunities,” Farris said in a statement.
During her time as CEO, Farris also oversaw some popular decisions, such as the re-signing of Steph Gilmore and sponsoring the Eddie Aikau Invitational.
Rip Curl will now begin a search for their new CEO.
//STU NETTLE
*Though Rip Curl is the major label, KMD share price includes the sales of two other brands. It could be argued the correlation isn't definitive of Rip Curl’s failings, yet Rip Curl's most recent EBITDA declined 24.5% from the previous year, which had also fallen 6% and 10% in the previous two years.
Comments
Very we phrased article
"Like the basement dwelling NRL team. " .....brilliant
'Trans faux pas' was my favourite, it really makes you concentrate on how you pronounce the final consonant of each word.
Chart nerd eye sees that support was taken out in June 2023, I guess this was before Bethany voiced her concerns?
Of more interest is how something surf related DIDN'T do phenomenally well in COVID times, for everyone who was yet to surf, began to surf down here, with a heavy emphasis on female surfers. They all needed surfing equipment and gear.
Bethany first voiced her concerns on February 5, 2023.
Appointed August 2021 and resigned October 2024.
My two cents is ripcurls a tough gig : 1. kids grew up and became uncool dads (we all loved it too much and which kids want what dad likes), 2. it doesn't know whether it is a surf fashion company like hollister or still a hard core brand. The shot illustrates it so well-bikinis that arent super surfable nor super trendy. All this without a super price point means its a middle end piece that kids don't love, and surfers arent super loyal to it, 3. then being in a big brand means your hooked into them. Needs a focus on being a surf/waterman go to or fashion brand. For yours truly bring back the killer wetties. And good quality kit.
A balanced report - thank you Stu. So tired of the "gO wOkE gO bRoKE" dipshits online, none of whom ever have any data to back their idiot narrative. Lets hope the Curl bounce back, still feels the most core brand of the big three (two?) and their event sponsorships have pretty much kept the tour alive since the venture capitalist vultures bought up and amalgamated the rest
Stu was wrong when he said: "In the two months after Hamilton spoke out, KMD shares lost $0.15, or 21%. Yet in the two months prior to Hamilton speaking out, KMD shares lost $0.13, or 18%."
Beth spoke out on 5 February 2023. The share price was not falling prior to this.
Also, the KMD share price is not exclusively linked to Rip Curl because KMD has other businesses therefore the KMD share price itself is irrelevant.
Prior to Bethany speaking against biological men in women's surfing, Rip Curl's profitability was improving, as shown in the investor presentation of 22/3/23, for the half year ending 31/12/22
However, 12 months later, Rip Curl's profits fell by 34%.
It possibly might be getting worse with Shaun Tomson now posting on Gabriel's Medina's Instagram. Personally, I unfollowed Medina and won't be buying any Medina boardshorts.
Nah, she actually first spoke in November. RC was involved in January. Check news archives not social media reposts.
Also, degree of RC involvement in the final para.
Stu. I already posted the video from Bethany first voiced her concerns on February 5, 2023. Best to avoid BGrit.
Mate, I'm writing about her speaking out directly and motivating the boycott that supposedly influenced sales. The boycott began January this year.
It's a moot point anyway considering KMD's long term slump
Eh?
Here's the share price over the last three years - October 2021 was around $1.56. Been a slow steady decline ever since.
October 21 peak covid
Covid checks run out in November 21 ?
Back to work slackers
Covid smoko.is over.
Checks out.
You should read my posts. As I posted:
* The share price is not linked to Rip Curl.
* Rip Curl was simply one of various KMD businesses.
* The Rip Curl profits rose over the previous year, as I posted. Posted again, below.
* In summary, Rip Curl half-year EBIT grew from $28.8M to $31.5M from 1H22 to 1H23; then fell to $20.8M in 1H24.
To add, obviously, there was the Covid spike in sales, as occurred with many companies. If we go back to pre-Covid and note the two months of sales & EBIT are for the Christmas period, we can see the Rip Curl sales post-Covid were in line with historical trends. In summary, two months of sales of Christmas from 19/11/19 to 20/1/20 had $139M in sales and $16.1M EBIT. Compare to half year to 31/12/21 and 31/12/22 with $28.8M and $31.5M EBIT. One would guess the $16.1M EBIT for 2 months Christmas 2019 was around $30M for the whole half year at best. Therefore, the Rip Curl sales & profit, ignoring the Covid spike, before Bethany spoke out were in line with historical trends and growing gradually.
But after she spoke out, the Rip Curl profits fell 34% over a year.
It's impossible to compare sales trends to "pre-Covid" years, because the pandemic started just a few months after KMD acquired RC (so we don't have RC sales data prior to then). And cherry picking "two months of Xmas sales" isn't very useful.
Eh?
What does KMD's share price reflect then?
KMD group's sales for FY24 were NZ$979m (-11.2% YOY).
Rip Curl - the first brand listed in KMD's Annual Report - contributed NZ$538.9m (55%), Kathmandu contributed NZ$361m (37%) and Oboz contributed NZ$79m (8%).
Rip Curl contribute the majority of revenue to the group, so therefore it's a fair assumption that its performance has an influence on share price.
Here's KMD's share price since 2009 (has been listed for the last fifteen years). It's share price reached an all-time low just a few months ago. COVID really threw a spanner in the works - you can see KMD's acquisition of Rip Curl gave it a nice boost (mid-way through a nice upwards trend) however I'm unsure how much share dilution occurred as a part of the transaction.
Why are you cherry picking half yearly data?
Here's your 1H FY23 data (from above), showing an 11% increase in profit for the six months until Dec 31st (obviously including AU Xmas sales etc).
Yet the full year FY23 data shows a 6% decrease in profit.
Swllnt code on the Nasdac.
Also, do you understand charts are for kooks that cannot comprehend financial reports?
Very entertaining thread first thing in the morning.
What does 1H mean Barb?
1H = first half of the financial year. In Australia, that's July 1st to December 31st.
Of course, there's also 2H which is the second half of the financial year, January 1st to June 30th.
Bigger companies will provide half-yearly reports/accounts to the market. Also, they'll sometimes provide intermittent "Trading Updates" to the market, if there are any developments outside of these standard reporting periods that may be price sensitive (i.e. could influence share price).
All of which is published on the ASX website (and others).
https://www.asx.com.au/markets/company/KMD
Thanks TB. You let Barb off the hook!
Barb never on the hook.
Not sure what clown would pay $700+ for a wetsuit, they may be good but are they that good?
How about a bewet jap suit- $1600
I hear you re the big price tag but holy smokes ripcurl are without equal when it comes to wetsuits imo. ALMOST a big enough quality diff for me to warrant the extra $400 vs the $300 yulex no-name stuff I usually buy.
You've been lucky, AP.
I always wanted to like RipCurl wetties and gave it a shot 3 times, incl a top of the line 4/3 Heatseeker. All of them leaked at the crotch within 1-2 months.
Back with O'Neill, and very happy.
Headed down to Sydney recently & needed a new steamer.
Straight to Rip Curl outlet store on Goldie. $300 for 3:2 eBomb zipperless steamer.
Happy days.
I don't think any of the old guard are kicking too many goals which, as Stu notes, has got zero to do with any gramsta, bookface, x factor, influenza kerfuffle. Gee times have changed from early this century when they were top of the pops...what goes around comes around.
I agree with you Donny. Rip Curl stopped being a surfbrand for me when other brands started making better products. There was a period where 50-70% of surfers I met in Tassie, where you are always wearing a wetsuit, wore an E Bomb or F Bomb. Oneil eclipsed them for a while, then Patagonia, and now I reckon 90% of the people I see in a car park are wearing Needs.
I feel like if they chose to be fashion they could have caved out a more niche nostalgia segment like others have done, and really leaned into the over 40s, cashed-up market (you'd have to convince them to wear anything other than a Deus t shirt first though). From what I see of it now it looks more like a brand you'd see selling in Target, but at a surf shop price point. Doomed to fail.
I was in wetsuits so much in the last 10 years, and got to test out lots. I wanted to support Rippy and bought quite a few, but at one stage, the seams started to go really early. This had occurred for me earlier with Quikky.
Current Needs suits are a little stiffer, dry well, and last a full 3 seasons before any worries about seaming, and then it's hardly a leak. So I keep buying.
Interesting VJ. Ive been on the Oneill train for as long as i can remember. Mostly sturdy, reliable no fuss warm wetties.
But that all went downhill post covid.
Dodgy seams mostly. Even had a whole arm come undone. This year's has been much better though so maybe the ship has righted itself after the hectic post covid surf boom.
Did u notice a similar thing with Rippy?
A bit earlier, a suit from maybe 2018 or 2019, I got about 6 months before seams leaked in knees and groin, before that they'd leak but after a year or so (excellent product support with patching them up under warranty). The Quik ones I remember from about 2014-15. Would like to get an Oneill, nothing but good feedback from mates & you lot, but no leaks so no reason to change just yet.
Westsuits did one nut numbing suit where there was a perforated panel in the groin, as designed. Didn't go too well in Vic.
Primarily a core surfing apparel company makes bloody good wetsuits, to my way of thinking.
To their credit, a Quik 5/4 from 2008 full sealed seams was absolutely superb and warm.
ohhhh brrr! Nobody wants a perforated panel in the groin, ever, anytime!
Cheers for the feedback VJ!
Yeah every time I stepped into the water it was like the faces the Lonely Island guys did in 'Jizz in my Pants' except they were faces of pain. Usually a little whelp too.
Think i can explain that mate. RC offloaded a couple of very high up wetsuit R&D blokes let's say a couple of years back. Me along with many other SC blokes were RC through and through. O'Neill picked up these blokes and just check out the last 2 years of O'Neills suits. Bloody awesome. Hence all my mates being off the RC suits (very poor quality) into O'Neill. Probably explains why all retail down here cannot move RC suits yet can't keep up enough O'Neill stock. Unfortunately RC got hit by the karma bus by not looking after good quality people.
Just like Quiky and Billy, Rip Curl lost their identity in the pursuit of $$$. Their lame woke stance just turbo charged the fall.
Please have a look at the share price graph above that Ben shared and pinpoint the moment Rip Curl became wOkE. I'll wait
Interesting to look back at when the brands started to decline. In Quiksilver's case, sometime in 2008 - Stu's article (below) is nearly sixteen years old.
https://www.swellnet.com/news/surfpolitik/2008/11/20/ripples-wall-street...
Billabong wasn't far behind.
Rip Curl on the other hand seems to have navigated things pretty well over the last two decades, as the other brands slumped heavily (though up until they were bought by KMD in 2021, they were a private company so financials weren't publicly available).
From 2013 you started to see online direct wetsuit companies like Need Essentials also around that time a wave of other online brands kick off. Then you have Covid where many people buy said brands and are happy with both quality and price and aren't going back to bricks and mortar retail. Online buying has brought a proliferation of brands which is gobbling sales. This trend is bigger than any Christian hissy fit about trans people.
Basically a leading, global surf company only generates around $500m of revenue with around 10% margin. There is definitely no money in surfing. I drove through Torquay a couple of weeks ago, stopped to do a bit of shopping. I don't know if I spent $100 on a family of 5. There's nothing to buy there. Rip Curl store is nice but there was no one in it. Empty. Boring prouducts, people are basically digging through boxes, looking for that $5-$10 bargin. Everything else is empty.
Retail armageddon, great description there Flollo.
The Rip Curl discount outlet in Torquay, even when they offer like 60-70% off, is full of so much genuine horseshit you wonder why they ever bothered to produce so much of it. Can’t even bring myself to drop $15-20 on some of their tees, shorts etc
I bought a heavily discounted zipper less f bomb.
It's an Ok suit, nothing special, definitely not worth a premium price as a premium product.
Quick question freeride76.
How is it to get in and out of ?
I've looked into getting one a while back
Just don't know if my shoulders could fit into it.
Agreed. Tassie surfer and haven't paid over $350 for a liquid seam sealed 4/3 or 5/3 for over a decade. So many second tier brands offering decent products that are pretty much as good as the big dogs. I've had rippy, qs, bong, O'Neil and Xcel suits too, but none have lasted longer or performed better than cheaper brands. Big brands guilty of taking the piss out of their core market with their pricing I think.
Any particular cheaper brands that stand out? That's some pretty good intel. You can't get away with a bad wettie in Tassie!
I’d love to be a right wing politician, you don’t have to worry about policy, research, truth, or any of that challenging stuff, all you have to do is come up with a snappy, rhyming phrase to bag someone out, and bingo, your voters are on board… “it rhymes so it must be true…!”
I would’ve thought appointing a female CEO was pretty “woke”. Equal pay for women, “woke” also you’d think. So it seems to me on the right-wing wokeness scale Rip Curl went woke long before the trans dog whistle.
I don't think it's right v left
It's come down to basic common sense
Mentally ill men in dresses that tick the female box and truly believe he is a chick is not right wing
My sister votes liberal yet she celebrates our gay cousin telling us he a chick,she woke as but doesn't vote left
I got kicked out of Xmas lunch cuz I asked cousin if he gonna cut his dick off
I been identifying as a woman lately by ticking the female box at EVERY opportunity
Iv even doubled down and I tick the aboriginal box too
It's that easy to be something u aren't
I stand with Bethany
Remember when a 4/3 was a 4/3 if you put calipers on it then the top wetsuit brands started making 4/3s and 3/2s that were more like 2/1s and 1/0.5s if you put calipers on them.
Thats when they lost me.
whaaaa really? damn never checked that out before... very interesting.
I must say my 4/3 zion must definitely be 4mm/3mm as it's soo much heavier in weight
It's getting a fair way off topic, however I think there's a fair bit of elasticity in the thickness measurement. Both neoprene itself plus the way suits are put together greatly influence warmth. An example: I recently had a 2mm suit that was every bit as warm as a 3/2 or even thicker. I wore it for the better part of two south coast (NSW) winters.
I mean, neoprene thickness is still a rough guide to how warm a suit should be yet I'm not sure getting calipers out tells the whole story.
Couldn't really get anymore off topic
Then a "basement dwelling NRL team."
Officially in the weeds
Rip Curl is a sinking ship in all categories other than wetsuits.
Until the fashion revolution completes the full 360 degrees back to its mid 90's status it doesn't matter who is steering the ship.
Kids don't like it, teens don't either. I'm 43 and lived the peak surf fashion boom and still not interested in wearing a RC tshirt. Apart from wetsuits, who is buying this shit?
surely Albo will be decked out in ripcurl gear now that he's a copa local
I can only hope the puffer jacket goes the same way.
Apparently Less and less people by the day according to the data and analytics.
Though at this point it could be a mirad of different reasons.
The company has been around since 67 and somehow made it this far.
Legacy brands at this point.
Not much else.
I'm waiting for the kids to pick up the ball and start running the surf industry so.to speak .
It's not just them, all the big legacy brands feel daggy at the moment.
Surfstitch is a good indicator, They are cutting brands constantly and what's left is always on sale or their own inhouse brands essentially in disguise. No surfboards any more.
Surfing just isn't cool anymore.