A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Bertlemann, Larry

Beschen, Shane

Australia-based surfwear and wetsuit company founded in 1973 by former surfboard shaper Gordon Merchant; one of the world's largest international board-sports clothing manufacturers. Merchant and his wife produced the first Billabong surf trunks in the basement of their home at Burleigh Heads, Queensland, and drove from one surfing area to the next selling their "boardshorts" from the back of Merchant's station wagon. After 10 years of steady growth, Billabong, by the early '80s, had become a hip alternative to surfwear powerhouse Quiksilver, and had an expanding number of successful overseas licensing agreements. The company's line of durable and unpretentious surfwear was augmented in the early '90s by a wetsuit division that soon proved equally popular.

Billabong's popularity was due in large part to Merchant's unerring talent for marketing and promotions. Team members over the years have included world champions Wayne Bartholomew, Layne Beachley, Sunny Garcia, Mark Occhilupo, and Andy Irons, and pro circuit standouts like Shane Dorian, Michael Barry, Luke Egan, Keala Kennelly, Joel Parkinson, and Taj Burrow. Billabong has also sponsored some of the most innovative and successful pro surfing competitions, including the Billabong Pro in Hawaii, the final event on the world tour from 1988 to 1990; and the Billabong Challenge, a series of nonrated showcase events held in the mid-'90s, in which a small group of top surfers were taken to an exotic location for a documentary-filmed surf-off. Billabong's longstanding relationship with surf movie auteur Jack McCoy has meanwhile produced a series of excellent surf videos, including 

 (2007). The Billabong Odyssey, a three-year big-wave exploration project initiated in 2001, was launched with the idea that Odyssey crew members would find and ride a 100-foot wave (they didn't). In 2001, Billabong launched the XXL Awards, an annual big-wave awards series honoring the heaviest waves surfed the previous year.

Billabong made business media headlines in 1999 when California's Bob Hurley, president and license holder of the wildly successful Billabong USA (Hurley had bought the Billabong USA license in 1983 for $40,000), left the company to form his own self-named surfwear and wetsuit operation—a move the 

 called "equivalent to Lee Iacocca leaving Ford to join rival Chrysler." (Hurley International was bought by the Nike shoe company three years later for an estimated $120 million.) Billabong Australia then sold 49 percent of the company to former Qantas Airlines chairman Gary Pemberton (Merchant retained 23 percent), who was instrumental in seeing the enterprise listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2000. Billabong shocked investors the following year by nearly doubling both its share price and profits. At its peak, Billabong was retailed in over 60 countries, and recorded sales of nearly A$1.7 billion.

An aggressive expansion in the early 2000s saw Billabong buy up small retail brands, and open its own brick and mortar stores, including a 6,000 square foot retail space in New York's Times Square. The move, profitable at first, soon proved costly. Internet retail sales undercut the company's in-store profits, and the global economic slowdown in 2008 hit all surf wear manufacturers hard. Company shares traded at a peak of around A$18 in 2007; by the summer of 2012, shares had plummeted to A$1, with Merchant—no longer CEO but still the largest shareholder— fending off takeover rumors.

Billabong

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