:Creative business skills

MELBOURNE: Highpoint Shopping Centre has launched a new campaign to announce the opening of its new $50 million southern extension. The campaign, created by Richard Blackman Design, includes a 30-second and 15-second television commercial, radio, superlites, a megatram and print executions. The expansion features 50 new stores over five new precincts.

:Sporting chance
NORTH AMERICA: Activewear company Columbia Sportswear has announced net sales of $US409.8 million ($A541.5 million) for the quarter ended September 30, 2005, a decrease of 1.4 per cent compared to the same period last year. Net income for the period was $US66.5 million ($A87.86 million), a 3.1 per cent decrease compared to net income of $US68.6 million ($A90.6 million) for the corresponding period.


PERTH: An innovative program, TCF Australia Uncovered is helping women in regional areas develop their fashion design businesses. Specifically for women in isolated and regional areas, the program offers free online mentoring with relevant industry mentors, business growth workshops and networking events, business matching and counselling. Indigenous women and those from multicultural background are particularly encouraged, organiser Carol Hanson from the Textile, Clothing and and Footwear Resource Centre of WA said.
Workshops have already been held in remote and isolated indigenous communities of WA, unearthing "a huge amount of talent and new opportunities" she said. The program finishes in February 2006, and there are about 25 places still open.
More: carol.hanson@tcfwa.com; tcfaustralia@tcfwa.com

: Fugitive textile magnate spins yarn
WARSAW: The last corporate fugitive from the boom and bust days of the 80s has been tracked down to Warsaw, The Bulletin reports. Once considered the world's biggest textile maufacturer, Aleksander Goldberg is wanted by investigators on at least 10 warrants over the $1.3 billion collapse of Linter Textile group in 1990. In the 1990s Goldberg was ranked with Alan Bond and Christopher Skase as Australia's most sought-after corporate villains., Linter was one of Australia's biggest businesses in the mid-80s, owning the brands Speedo, Exacto, Kolotex, King Gee and Stubbies. The company crashed with debts of $1.3 million and Goldberg disappered in 1991. He has retained Australian citizenship and recently renewed his passport. He said he he had not been contacted by investigators for a long time and would return to Australia "when it suited."