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For the past a month and a half, the website of Australian activewear brand Stax has been replaced by a customer FAQ page that states: “SALE IS CLOSED”.
The company, which was best known for form fitting activewear with minimal branding, collapsed in June after its lender, NAB, called in receivers to try to recover millions in debts owed to several parties.
But one day, and no one is quite sure when, the site will be back up and running. “This is a fresh start for Stax,” said entrepreneur and Stax’s new co-owner, Justin Truong.
“This is such an iconic Australian brand that we want to give it another chance. It could have been sold off to a faceless corporation that could strip it for parts.”
Truong and wife and business partner Sandy Li-Truong have led a private investor group to acquire Stax in a rescue deal that makes them the new majority owners. The athleisure label left behind debts of $6.7 million to employees, creditors and the tax office after being handed over to receivers in late June.
It is not clear what, if anything, those parties will get out of the sale; the Truongs declined to discuss the financials of the deal and were also coy about how exactly they would avoid the pitfalls of the retail trade, where Stax competes against numerous other brands such as Lululemon, LSKD and White Fox all offering very similar products.
“Our focus is really building this with strong foundations and rebuilding Stax, so we can earn the trust of the really incredible, valuable, loyal community that the brand has built along the way,” said Justin Truong.
The couple do have experience in the industry as the owners of Pushas, an online sneaker, streetwear and collectibles reseller. The shoe fanatics started selling their own sneakers in 2017 to fund their increasingly expensive hobby and turned it into a global marketplace. With backing from Justin Kan, a co-founder of the massive streaming service Twitch, and Airtasker founder Tim Fung, it now turns over $10 million-plus a year selling several thousands of authenticated items such as Air Jordans, Yeezys and Labubus a week to collectors in Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada.
In a crucial difference from Stax, Pushas sells other companies’ brands, not its own. The Truongs, who acquired Stax alongside a handful of family offices for an undisclosed sum, are not interested in running their new business themselves. They are expecting to sign the paperwork to announce a new chief executive who will build out a team to restart operations for the assets they have acquired, which include its trademarks, IP, and digital assets.
“It won’t be an entirely new team,” Truong said. “We’ll see who in the previous team we’ll bring back. It’s good to have continuity.”
He will sit on the board as chairman; the new Stax will run independently of Pushas. “As owners, we don’t want to overstep,” he said.
The rescue deal transfers the activewear brand from the hands of one entrepreneurial married couple to another. Founded in 2015, founders Don Robertson and wife Matilda Murray built Stax from the ashes of a previously failed business, an online supplement brand that was liquidated. The pair’s pivot to selling hoodies, merchandise and luxury activewear under the Stax brand saw the married couple debut on The Australian Financial Review’s Young Rich List in 2022, and worth an estimated $70 million as of 2025.
Stax expanded aggressively into physical stores in 2022 and operated at least eight, but closed six in 2025 after rent costs increased and customers tightened their wallets following rapidly rising interest rates and high inflation.
On July 13, the pair issued an apology through Instagram for the sudden collapse of the high-profile brand that had been spotted on Jennifer Lopez, Megan Fox, Hailey Bieber.