From World Champ To Savvy Investor, Mick Fanning’s Been Making Moves
Mick Fanning has three world titles to his credit, but a decade removed from winning his last title and it’s his post-surf career where he may be enjoying the most success. Turns out, just like 11-time world champ Kelly Slater who’s got investments and businesses of his own, he’s a savvy entrepreneur who’s now worth an upwards of $13 million.
While every other article in the world about Mick focuses on his talents as an athlete, his steely resolve or his ability to manhandle Great White sharks, behind the scenes Eugene's been doing work. He recently attended the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Melbourne, Australia, where he talked business with The CEO Magazine. Delving into his portfolio and secrets to success, the three-time world champ shared his experiences in the beer business, launching an eco surfboard, seaweed supplements for cattle and sustainable dog food.
“I guess I like a bit of diversity,” Mick explained. “But I only invest in things I’d use myself … I don’t get bogged down in the nitty gritty or study the numbers, I look at the people involved and whether I gel with them.”
Case in point, Balter Brewing. Mick’s passion for beer is no secret, he is Australian after all, and when it was time to hang up the jersey he joined forces with a few of his best mates, including fellow world champ Joel Parkinson, along with Championship Tour stars Bede Durbidge and Josh Kerr, among others. Within three years Carlton & United Breweries purchased Balter for $128 million, leaving Mick with a tidy little $2.5 million profit.
Then there’s Mick Fanning Softboards, which he launched with friend and big-wave lunatic Mark Mathews. Noted for his professional successes—he won 22 Championship Tour events before officially retiring in 2018—his surfboard brand exists just to get people in the water and having fun.
“In fact, we’ve just come up with the first-ever surfboard to be certified as eco-friendly, which is really exciting for us as they aren’t usually the best for the environment,” Mick says. “It’s constructed with a different resin and reused plastics, and is going to be really big.”
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And just like his passion for beer, Mick loves dogs. He’s a dog guy, straight up. Always has been. So he invested in Scratch, an ethical dog food brand. He also’s also invested in Sea Forest, a biotech firm that turns seaweed into animal feed. Real estate, protein powder, burger joints, Pilates studios, the list goes on. To be fair, Kelly still has him on the wave pool thing.
These days Mick splits time between his home on the Gold Coast and California, where his partner’s from. With their young son in tow, Mick still just wants to go surfing.
“Over the next 20 years, I want to take my family on surfing trips and do as little work as possible,” he adds.
That passion for planet-friendly ventures inspired him to back ethical dog food brand Scratch and biotech company Sea Forest, a seaweed farm using green technology to produce animal feed. He also bought into a chain of burger restaurants, a protein powder sourced from the Andes and a network of fitness studios, not to mention amassing a sizable property portfolio.
“I guess I like a bit of diversity,” he says. “But I only invest in things I’d use myself. Or, in the case of Scratch, that my dog likes. For me, business is intuitive. I don’t get bogged down in the nitty gritty or study the numbers, I look at the people involved and whether I gel with them.”
With more than 25 years of writing about surfing, the ocean and action sports, Jake Howard continues to share stories, profiles and issues that shape the surfing world. One of the premier subject-matter experts in the field today, he's savvy in the ways of print, digital and social media, his breadth of work is expansive. Getting his start writing Surfline surf reports and recording the phone reports for 976-SURF in the late '90s, Jake served as the managing editor for Surfer Magazine in the early 2000s before moving on to launch RedBullSurfing.com and cover surfing for ESPN and the X Games. Over the years, Jake has also enjoyed time behind the edit desk at The Surfer's Journal, as well as the World Surf League, where he worked as the Senior Editor for a number of years. Beyond producing editorial content, Jake has served as a digital marketer and copywriter for iconic surf brands such as Quiksilver, Roxy and Rip Curl. Writing thousands of pages of copy for Surfline, he has deep SEO experience as well. The surf columnist for the San Clemente Times, Jake continues to dedicate himself to the culture and history of the sport through his involvement with the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center in San Clemente.