Why City Chic's 'Forced' Retreat From the US Might Be Its Best Move Yet

<p>Episode 150 — and Mal&#39;s flying solo this week with Alex over in New Zealand, so the proper 150th milestone celebration is on hold until next week. In the meantime, it&#39;s a big one: seven stories, four quickies and three deep dives, built almost entirely around Australia&#39;s reporting season and one theme underneath all of it — who&#39;s actually disciplined enough to make hard calls, and who&#39;s just getting lucky.</p><p>We open with the messiest story of the week: Valley Eyewear, the celebrity sunglasses brand worn by Chris Hemsworth and Margot Robbie, has gone into liquidation — not because the market turned on them, but because its own co-founders took each other to the Federal Court. From there it&#39;s a run through Adore Beauty and Temple &amp; Webster&#39;s very different record years, a hot-topic detour into the Tate brothers&#39; court filings and what they reveal about the AU &#39;ecom millionaire&#39; course industry, before three deep dives on Step One, City Chic, and Kogan — three very different companies all leaning on the same thing right now: operational discipline.</p><ul><li>Valley Eyewear&#39;s celebrity-worn sunglasses brand has gone into liquidation via a Federal Court order filed by its own co-founders against their business partner.</li><li>Adore Beauty posted record $207.3 million revenue but saw underlying EBITDA nearly halve to $3.8 million, the deliberate cost of doubling its store network to 20 locations.</li><li>Temple &amp; Webster&#39;s underlying EBITDA jumped 28% to a new record, helped by a $3 million AI-automation saving in H2 alone and exclusive products now over half of revenue.</li><li>Court filings in the Tate brothers&#39; US extradition case reveal their signature luxury lifestyle was largely rented or paid promotion, and Mal draws the parallel to AU &#39;ecom millionaire&#39; course marketing.</li><li>Step One swung to a $6.4 million loss as it deliberately walked away from deep discounting, protected by a debt-free balance sheet with $25.8 million in cash.</li><li>City Chic&#39;s underlying EBITDA nearly doubled as ANZ growth offset a forced 42% pullback from the US market, alongside a quiet shift of its Amazon business to a marketplace model.</li><li>Kogan&#39;s core business grew 16% on AI-driven margin gains, while Mighty Ape finally returned to positive EBITDA after an 18-month operational clean-up following its botched 2024 platform migration.</li></ul>