June 5, 2014

Quiksilver Shares Have Been Tanking

Quiksilver delivered the results from its second quarter on Tuesday night Australian time and there were a few surprises (read: gut punches) for investors. A loss was expected but it was widely thought to be around $0.02 – $0.04 per share. In fact the company lost US$42 million (on revenues of US$408 million, about $40 million shy of expectations too) which equated to $0.15 per share.

CEO Andy Mooney, formerly of Nike, is mid way through a turn around plan that has seen the company divest of non-core brands, find efficiencies in their supply chain and made cuts wherever possible, including to the team. Kelly Slater moved on under his tenure and the outlook is pretty bleak at the moment. They managed to pull their margins up a little through direct sales but the growth there didn’t really offset the loss in sales to their traditional retailers which was down 15%.

The share price’s 52 week high was back in November (2013) is $9.29, last Tuesday (June 4th, 2014) was the low point, at one stage hitting $3.13.

If the company has squeezed everything that they can from cuts and efficiencies, then it might be time to start looking at their presence in the consumers mind. Do they matter anymore? If not, shouldn’t they be doing something about that? The marketing strategy employed to date isn’t achieving what they need it to… It’s time to switch gears and find a strategy that does.

by Dave