My questions and observations are:
I'm pretty sure Conner rode for Reef at one point. Nutty ran Reef USA for a long time.
Conner isn't hurting for cash, the family is wealthy, but he's going to want to make his own money and his agent needs to justify his position. I'm sure JS' expansion in the US market is the motivating factor for their side of the table. I'm curious to know if JS offered equity in the brand stateside. That's something that CI is not going to offer at this stage in the game.
Connor could benefit from some major shifts in his surfing. He's got great fundamentals, but he can come off a bit, well, fundamental (read: boring)...
Nobody on the CI team is trying to get boards from Al Merrick. Most of the team has their go to shapers. Mike Walter is one of the team builders that several of the CI team go to. I forget the dude's name in SoCal that is pretty popular too. It's not like CI has their team boards going through the same assembly line as their retail orders. They know who is shaping their board and they are world class shapers that are often far more skilled than the names on the label at that moment in time.
I don't disagree, but the point I was trying to make was that while many of the ghost shapers for JS and CI are top shapers in their own right, none of them are neither JS or AM, and that's what matters. So JS is his new shaper now, some would say top of the line too.
I have so many friends that have been team CI. They always freaked out when AM shaped their board, probably gave them a bit of physcological mental edge, as compared to one of the other ghost shapers shapes.
It's just a contract after all, probably doesn't last more than a couple years. So maybe it is a bit about $$ too?
I'm a bit skeptical about some sort of equity in a board building company, though, that's just stupidness!
With CI in his backyard, he'll be back guaranteed, especially after he's off the CT!