For a company that's long traded on the glitz and glamour of the celebrity endorsements, it wasn't a good sign.
In   August 2013, vitamins maker Swisse revealed it would not have a marquee in the exclusive Birdcage area at the Melbourne Cup carnival at Flemington racecourse. The previous year, chief executive Radek Sali hosted actor Nicole Kidman and a string of other celebrities.
The question had to be asked, had the money dried up? 
Fast forward to the present and suddenly Sali and his company are basking in the glory of a stunning deal, after the Hong Kong-listed Biostime bought 83 per cent of Swisse in a deal late this week that values the Melbourne-based firm at $1.67 billion.
Sali, founding shareholder Stephen Ring and former CEO and current board member Michael Saba will receive about $450 million each from the sale, and each will maintain a small shareholding from a deal that will catapult them all onto the next BRW Rich List.
Sali will also join the Biostime board, while Ring - whose sons work in the business - and Saba will leave their board roles. 

Swisse was stretched
Sali admits such a move was far from his mind two years ago. At the time, Swisse was suffering from some serious growing pains, with its hefty marketing budget - estimated at more than $40 million annually - stretching its cashflow. 
"Our revenue was always constant but there was certainly issues with our cost base," the 39-year-old Sali told Fairfax Media.
"There were some really difficult decisions we had to make on our spending and we had to go through every line item of costs. It was challenging but we were confident in our growth story."
A week or so before its Birdcage about-face, Swisse had received a $100 million capital injection from Goldman Sachs Special Situations Group under a mezzanine-style debt investment.
Shortly after the 2013 Melbourne Cup, Swisse signed a deal with PGT Healthcare to license its products overseas, concentrating on Europe, Asia and North America, after a disastrous foray into the United States had seen the company write down $29.5 million on the venture in its 2014 accounts.
And then came booming demand from China, to which Sali attributes Swisse's stunning growth, along with gaining better access to shelf space in the big Australian supermarket chains. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation are understood to be tracking at an annualised rate of close to $200 million, compared to $2 million in 2013.
"There's that large Chinese community here in Australia and they have been buying for themselves and also as gifts and to send to relatives," Sali said.
"There's also been some entrepreneurial people who have been on-selling [Swisse products to China]. So we have done a lot of work in marketing in this area and really working hard to educate the market about our products."

China on the mind
China was a market on Sali's mind even back during the issues of 2013. He had already met Biostime management on a search for a partner to break into China before import and market restrictions pushed Swisse elsewhere.
But the two parties stayed in touch, having been introduced when a Swisse executive who had worked for a Biostime supplier suggested a meeting, before talks on the deal struck this week started heating up two months ago.
The seeds for Swisse were first sown in the 1960s, when co-founder Kevin Ring travelled to Switzerland to lean more about natural medicines. He returned to Australia and set up an organic bakery in a Melbourne outer suburb, selling wholefoods, organic bread and the first Swisse product, pollen tablets.
Ring would expand his distribution and his product range into the new frontier of multivitamins, launching its flagship product - the Swisse Women's Ultivite - in 1991. 
Michael Saba, another key shareholder, joined the business after working at his family's sandwich bar across the street from the Swisse offices.
He served as managing director from 2000 to 2007 before eventually handing over to current CEO Sali, whose father Professor Avni Sali had focused his career on "integrative medicine", combining conventional therapies with complementary medicines.
Sali joined the business in 2005 and set about making vitamins "fashionable and fun" with the aid of a cavalcade of celebrity endorsements including Kidman and her husband, Keith Urban, and various sports stars.

Australian quality sought
Biostime general manager of international operations Laetitia Garnier said Swisse products and Australian health and wellness brands in general are considered safe for use by Chinese consumers.
"With Australia, there is that thought of quality and safety. It is also an aspiration brand. With Swisse there is also that culture of innovation, so I think there will be a lot synergies in terms of product research and development and marketing."
The deal is also a transformational one for Biostime, according to its CEO and chairman, Luo Fei.
"We want to expand our reach. We are already strong in pharmacies and we have 2 million mothers on our e-commerce platform [Biostime is Asia's eighth largest baby-formula maker] and we think they are a good target to purchase Swisse products," he said.
The market also backed the deal, with Biostime shares, which had been falling this year, rocketing by more than 25 per cent during trading in Hong Kong on Friday. 
Sali said Swisse products will soon be on sale in Singapore and the United Kingdom, while Lui wants to take the company's products around the world. The travails of only two years ago are now largely forgotten.