Sass & Bide founders to leave the brand after 15 years; Arrests made in multimillion-dollar World Cup ticket scam: Midday Roundup

Sass & Bide founders Heidi Middleton and Sarah-Jane Clarke have announced their plans to leave the fashion brand they founded in 1999, less than a year after department store Myer took full control of the brand.

Middleton and Clarke, who started Sass & Bide by selling denim from a stall at London’s Portobello Road Market, told Vanity Fair they had always planned to sell the company, but they originally thought this would happen after 10 years, not 15.

“When we first decided to launch Sass & Bide, our dream was to build an international brand and to at some stage sell the business and explore other creative projects,” said Middleton. “We never dreamed of handing it down to daughters or other generations.”

“We wanted to leave the business in really strong health and leave the brand while it was flourishing,” Middleton said of the decision to leave now. “We’ve had an amazing run especially in the last five to seven years. There’s a great team in there that we believe can take the business forward.”

Myer purchased 65% of Sass & Bide from Middleton and Clarke in 2011, buying out the final 35% in September last year.

Arrests made in multi-million dollar World Cup ticket scam

Police in Brazil have arrested 11 people in relation to an illegal ticketing scam believed to have netted the organisers up to $US95 million ($A101 million) per tournament since 2002.

Fairfax reports the scam has been linked to a FIFA official, who is thought to have funnelled tickets to the black market through an intermediary in Match Hospitality, the official ticket agency of the World Cup.

The 11 people arrested on Tuesday are accused of selling tickets which may have been obtained through the FIFA official.

The scam is believed to have been in operation since the 2002 World Cup finals, with as many as 1000 tickets for each of the 64 World Cup matches in three tournaments affected.

Shares up on open

Aussie shares have opened higher this morning, capping off a week of positive results for the local share market.

The S&P/ASX200 benchmark was up 34.5 points to 5525.7 points at 11.58am AEST. On Thursday, the Dow Jones closed 92.02 higher, up 0.54% to 17068.3 points.