The former Costa Mesa, Calif. MMA training center and headquarters of RVCA founder Pat Tenore is on the market as the home of its sister brands in Huntington Beach is also shopped to prospective tenants.
The real estate listings mark further consolidation of the Boardriders business under new parent Authentic Brands Group.
They also follow multiple layoff rounds at Boardriders last year and this year across its offices, retail stores and distribution center.
Boardriders previously owned RVCA, Quiksilver, Billabong, Roxy, DC Shoes, Element, Honolua and VonZipper. The portfolio is now owned by Authentic, which paid roughly $1.25 billion for the business in September.
RVCA’s former Costa Mesa headquarters, totaling nearly 55,000 square feet, went on the market in January. It’s simultaneously listed for sale at $21.77 million and for lease, with availability in May.
The RVCA headquarters join the Huntington Beach, Calif. headquarters of Boardriders, which became available for sublet in December, according to a real estate listing. The 120,000-square-foot property had once been the home of the Quiksilver Inc. group, which was later renamed Boardriders post-bankruptcy reorganization.
The shrinking physical footprints of the former Boardriders brands comes as it moves to the Authentic Brands model of operation, with work ranging from sourcing and manufacturing to retail store operations and marketing now distributed across a network of outside operators and licensees.
That’s different from how the group previously operated with that work centralized and mostly controlled by the respective brands.
RVCA Contraction
The closure of RVCA headquarters may have been a foregone conclusion after the layoffs that occurred in the Costa Mesa office in September.
The director of the company’s Artist Network Program, seen as a key part of the RVCA brand, was laid off in September. ANP has been the source of artist collaborations over the years. It also included a fund for educational programs and other forms of giving back to local communities.
Additional layoffs encompassed cuts on the brand side, in addition to design and product development, according to documents filed with the state. Those layoffs included a women’s designer; team manager; sports marketing coordinator; vice president of design and marketing creative; vice president of global merchandise, design and development; and Tenore, who was president up until Sept. 1.
It’s a big change for a business once viewed as a division with plenty of potential to grow. Former parent Billabong International Ltd., which originally bought the company in 2010, viewed brands such as RVCA as one of its “growth areas,” according to its half-year results for the six months through Dec. 31, 2017. The struggling Billabong International business was sold to what was then Boardriders in 2018 for $1.05 per share, which equates to about $162 million.
While Authentic owns RVCA, the business is now run by a licensee called Liberated Brands. Liberated also struck several licensing deals for a broad swath of the former Boardriders business, including Billabong, Quiksilver, Roxy and Honolua. The business ranges from operating the physical stores and online shops to distribution.
Liberated, formed in 2019, compromises former management from Volcom, along with Authentic Brands.
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