The Rivers Saga

When Rivers was acquired in Nov 13: "Rivers is an iconic Australian brand that is a complementary fit for the Group’s brand portfolio and presents significant growth opportunities that are expected to be realised by FY2015."

HY res press release 25/2/14 "The integration of Rivers into the Group progresses well and the focus in the month after the acquisition was to maximise trade during the Christmas period, which was successfully achieved through changes in the brand’s inventory management and promotion tactics. We anticipate that Rivers’ buying, planning and marketing teams will be fully integrated with the Sydney operations within six months."

FY res press release 26/8/14 "“A key focus in the second half has been the integration of Rivers and whilst we continue to make considerable progress, there is still significant work to be done as we rebuild the buying, planning and marketing teams, and business processes. We only expect an improvement in Rivers’ performance in the second half of FY15."

AGM 20/11/14 "Rivers is still very much in the turnaround
stage and although, as Geoff said, there is light at the end of the tunnel, positive
contributions from this brand will be challenging to achieve in the short term."

HY Guidance 16/1/15 (Regarding Rivers) "Despite the current challenges, by liquidating the stock in half the expected time frame, the business will ensure the long term brand equity is retained, albeit with a negative impact to the Company in the next twelve to eighteen months."

So we have gone from an Aug 2014 target for integration, and growth opportunities to be realised by FY 2015 to a negative impact to the company up until about Jan to July 2016 - nearly 3 years after acquisition. It sounds to me like a saga, and that this project might fail, and that timeframes will keep blowing out as more money is being thrown at it. I might be wrong - but this seems like one of "those" acquisitions.

So Rivers is an iconic brand - with an icon defined thus "a person or thing regarded as a representative symbol or as worthy of veneration." I think Rivers is more the representative symbol - veneration??? maybe not. Representative - maybe - of something that you don't hold in very high esteem at all, like a "Hello Sir" telemarketer trying to get you to switch your utilities ;-)

Good luck to holders - you'll need it. This is my opinion only - would love to hear comments - especially posts telling me I am wrong. I hope I am wrong.

Maybe they should ditch the name Rivers, and change it to Suede or something like that