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

Episode 150 — and Mal'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's a big one: seven stories, four quickies and three deep dives, built almost entirely around Australia's reporting season and one theme underneath all of it — who's actually disciplined enough to make hard calls, and who's just getting lucky.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's a run through Adore Beauty and Temple & Webster's very different record years, a hot-topic detour into the Tate brothers' court filings and what they reveal about the AU 'ecom millionaire' 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.Valley Eyewear's celebrity-worn sunglasses brand has gone into liquidation via a Federal Court order filed by its own co-founders against their business partner.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.Temple & Webster'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.Court filings in the Tate brothers' US extradition case reveal their signature luxury lifestyle was largely rented or paid promotion, and Mal draws the parallel to AU 'ecom millionaire' course marketing.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.City Chic'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.Kogan'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.