Marquee Brands is stepping up again — acquiring sock standout Stance, expanding its portfolio to 19 brands and opening up a new set of opportunities for its intellectual property machine.
While Stance is known mostly for its sock business, the brand has expanded into other categories, like T-shirts and underwear, and has been making some key connections in sports and entertainment that could play into the brand management company’s sweet spot.
“You have all these cultural touch points — collaborations with the NBA, with Disney, with Star Wars, with Marvel and Hollywood and entertainment icons,” said Heath Golden, chief executive officer of Marquee, in an interview with WWD.
The brand has linked with Billie Eilish, Dwyane Wade and the Estate of New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, but the idea goes beyond keeping one’s ankles warm and stylish.
“It is not just about the socks,” Golden said. “It’s about the brand, it’s about the cultural touchstone. There are major league baseball players standing at home plate in Stance socks and the World Series.”
In a “fragmented, geopolitically complicated world” he said, “sports and entertainment are what cuts through all that noise.”
“We look at that and we say, that is a wonderful way to accelerate our brands and Stance and beyond,” the CEO said.
Heath Golden, CEO of Marquee Brands.
Courtesy
Marquee’s portfolio ranges from Martha Stewart and America’s Test Kitchen to Anti Social Social Club, Ben Sherman and beyond.
Already, the company has sports connections.
Ben Sherman just signed on for a fourth tour as the official outfitter of Great Britain’s Olympics team, which will wear looks from the brand at the Games’ opening and closing ceremony in Milano Cortina this winter.
Like the other brand management companies, Golden looks to buy strong names that aren’t necessarily living up to their potential, holding onto just the IP and handling marketing while partners make and sell the actual merchandise.
In Stance’s case, that partner will be United Legwear and Apparel Co., which will be the brand’s core global licensee, managing operations across all territories, except for China.
Already, the brand is sold in 42 countries through more than 1,100 U.S. wholesale accounts, e-commerce, international distributors and dedicated stores. United Legwear will lead product design, development, retail and ecommerce operations and distribution for socks and underwear.
Isaac Ash, CEO and president of United Legwear, said in a statement: “Stance is a perfect fit — a pioneering brand that transformed everyday essentials into expressions of style, and has built an impressive following through bold design, cultural storytelling and a community of athletes and artists.”
As is usually the case when a brand enters the brand management world, the business is due for some big changes.
Stance has traditionally been a vertically run company sourcing its goods in Asia.
Now, Golden said “the operational innards of the brand” would transition to United Legwear, which will take on key employees and certain stores.
Some might see a business that’s being taken apart, but Golden sees the opposite.
“We take these broken businesses, buy great brands and put them back together in a way that makes them thrive,” he said.
Stance attracted the attention of top-tier venture capital investors and raised more than $115 million, hitting a valuation of $400 million in 2016.
Since then, much has changed in the market and the brand management firms have become a new force.
Marquee did not release the terms of the deal and Golden would say only that, “We paid a full and fair price.”
Marquee is looking to build Stance’s sock business while also growing the brands with new categories.
Courtesy Marquee
Now, Stance is part of Marquee, which has a growing set of licensees and other brands that can make something out of the connections that business brings to the ecosystem.
“I learned a long time ago in this industry, the best thing to do is: Do more with your friends — sell more to your friends, partner more with your friends,” Golden said.
In the meantime, expect to see more Stance.
“The natural layup is essentials, things against your body, innerwear, comfort, performance,” Golden said. “Certainly men’s, women’s, kids’, performance, apparel, athleisure, loungewear. But we also feel good that we’ll see this in health and beauty and footwear as well. Much, much more to come.”
Marquee also has the media chops to inject Stance into the cultural conversation in new ways.
The company’s fast, ad-supported TV channels have generated more than 1 billion minutes viewed so far — more than 1,901 years of watch time all together.
“We’ve been nominated for 11 Emmy awards over the past three years,” Golden said. “We are in the TV business, we are in the documentary business. We are in the book business, we are in the magazine business. We are in the TikTok business. So we are continuing to lean into that because I think that cultural flywheel really helps to profitably power brands.”
The brand management world has been hopping lately.
Marquee began the year with the acquisition of Laura Ashley and moved on to a gardening apparel line from Martha Stewart, a deal to bring BCBG to India and key states in the Middle East, Body Glove teamed up with Tatiana Weston-Webb on a capsule collection, Anti Social Social Club cut the ribbon on its first global flagship in Seoul and more.
The competition has also been busy. Authentic Brands Group, the giant of the space, is buying the Guess brand and is said to be in talks to snap up Missoni. And WHP Global bought Vera Wang.
Golden said the deal market is “very healthy.”
“The brand management model is growing,” he said. “The big three players will be responsible by year-end for $50 billion of retail sales. Investment bankers are catering their pitches to us now.
“Thanks to the beauty of our model and the power of our model, we are the ones that can pay value for great brands, but broken businesses,” he said. “It’s really a win-win model for both buyers and sellers. There are better assets coming to market. In a challenging environment, multiples for buyers [like Marquee] are becoming more favorable. We are setting ourselves apart as the buyer of choice.”
