Marquee Brands is closing in on Dockers.
Sources said the brand management company was in exclusive talks with Levi Strauss & Co. to buy the khaki specialist.
Levi’s, which under chief executive officer Michelle Gass is focusing more than ever on its namesake brand and women’s, said in October that it had hired Bank of America to pursue “strategic alternatives” for men’s-focused Dockers business.
Marquee could not be reached and a Levi’s spokesman declined to comment Thursday.
Right from the start of the process, it was the big brand management players like Marquee, WHP Global and the giant Authentic Brands Group that were seen as most interested in cutting a deal.
WHP and Authentic are both said to have taken a look at the business, which drove sales of about $318 million for Levi’s last year, accounting for roughly 5 percent of its revenues.
While Marquee nails down its negotiations for the brand, other players are said to still be closely watching the process. If a deal does not materialize, there are certainly others, including Authentic, which could swoop in and cut a deal. One source, however, said that Authentic is “getting more and more picky as they get bigger and bigger.”
Levi’s started the business in 1986 and built it into a casual-Friday giant, but today it seems almost tailor-made for the brand management model.
Dockers is both very well known and has plenty of customers across the 50 countries it sells in. Levi’s has tried different approaches with the business over the years, but it still doesn’t have quite enough oomph to hold onto it. Besides, Levi’s is now working to diversify away from denim in another way, by building up its Beyond Yoga unit.
Marquee — which owns 18 brands including Martha Stewart, Ben Sherman and Laura Ashley — would bring an entirely new model to the business, holding onto and developing the intellectual property while licensing out production to partners.
Brand managers look to line up those partners as a deal is coming together. And Marquee is said to be in talks with Randa Apparel & Accessories, which already owns and manufactures Haggar and would be well positioned to produce Dockers for the U.S.
It’s not clear who might work with the brand overseas, but Marquee has a long list of production partners.
Marquee, which was established by Neuberger Berman in 2014, works with something like 300 licensees and has experience converting brands to a licensing model.
It’s a change that can set businesses in new directions, with the brand filling its usual niches and then showing up in new product categories and new markets.
The timing of the next step for Dockers is not clear, but Levi’s releases its first-quarter earnings on April 7, making that a natural time to make an announcement if a deal is close.
