STEINHAUSEN, Switzerland (BRAIN) — Skins, an Australia-born brand that made its mark with compression clothing, has filed for bankruptcy in Switzerland.
The company was launched in Australia by Brad Duffy in 1996 and was later purchased by Jaimie Fuller, who remained its chairman until the bankruptcy.
Skins sponsored the USA Cycling team during the period that included the London Olympics. Fuller was an outspoken critic of the UCI for what he called its mismanagement of the Lance Armstrong doping scandal. In 2012 he said he was suing the UCI.
In a letter on his LinkedIn page, Fuller said the 2008 global financial crisis ultimately caused the demise of the company.
"When the global financial crisis (GFC) hit in 2008, I sold a portion of SKINS to a private equity firm. I also made a lousy deal," he wrote. "When the GFC was over, I had to get out of the private equity arrangement. To do so, we borrowed heavily, and with the help of a Japanese partner we managed to buy out the private equity shareholders.
"To my enormous regret, those borrowings have become unsustainable and while we have been working for some time now to try to avoid what is happening today, in the end there was no choice."
