Want to know how to wipe out more than $500 million of value in six months, how to explain a chief executive who has gone AWOL and how to turn a prospective profit of $18 million into a loss of about $18 million. Ask the once darling of the stock market-turned disaster, SurfStitch.

Its shares were dumped again on Thursday when it confessed to yet another profit mega glitch. Shares fell by 30 per cent when news hit the market – plunging from 40¢ to 26¢ just before lunch. In November, the company was worth $580 million – at one stage on Thursday morning the value of the company had dropped as low as $74 million.

Surfstitch has downgraded earnings three times in six months. Credit:Louie Douvis

Over 18 months, SurfStitch raised about $180 million, bought a series of businesses, retail and surfing content. It paid up generously to amass a suite of brands in what, with the value of hindsight, is being considered corporate bingeing – from which the indigestion is now being fully felt.

Some of Australia's most savvy investors were captivated by this company, romanced by its e-commerce-meets-youth surf culture strategy and wowed by surfer Lex Pedersen and investment banker Justin Cameron, who founded it and had big ambitions to be the digital go-to for all things surfing.