The target closing date for Authentic Brand Group’s acquisition of Boardriders has been pushed back to Aug. 31, according to people inside Boardriders.
The company also named some of the U.S. licensing partners for the Boardriders brands during a town hall with employees Thursday.
The sale, which originally had been expected to close on July 31, needs more time due to regulatory procedures in Australia, Boardriders employees were told during the town hall.
The complex deal involves Authentic acquiring the Quiksilver, Billabong, Roxy, DC Shoes, RVCA, Element, VonZipper, and Honolua brands with portfolio-wide revenue of approximately $1.7 billion. The acquisition would also include more than 500 company-owned stores and web stores in 35 countries.
According to employees who attended the meeting, Boardriders Americas President Nate Smith, who gets rave reviews from the teams for his leadership during this challenging time at the company, also outlined the licensing deals that have been signed in the U.S.
Those include O5 Apparel for Quiksilver wholesale, and several for Roxy in different categories, including Aldo for footwear, the Levy Group for Roxy swim, and 2253 for sportswear, employees at the meeting told SES.
The license for kids’ for all of the brands will reportedly go to Centric Brands.
No licensing partners were named for DC or VonZipper at the meeting, according to people who attended the town hall.
Employees were also told that Liberated Brands was expected to get Billabong men’s and women’s and RVCA. In addition, Liberated will likely get the DTC business for those brands in the U.S., along with DTC for Quiksilver, Roxy and Honolua. However, the Liberated deal has not yet been signed, according to information provided at the town hall.
Liberated has a close connection to Authentic, which has a 20% stake in the business. Liberated is the operating company for Authentic-owned Volcom, and is run by former Volcom executives.
According to Moody’s, Authentic is paying $1.25 billion to buy Boardriders, which had $740 million of outstanding debt as of January 31.
Pushing back the close date means the continuation of uncertainty for many Boardriders employees, who are waiting to see if they will be offered jobs with the new licensees.
We are told that Boardriders outlined a timeline for that process during the town hall, with employees expected to find out during a two-week period whether they will be offered a job with the new brand operators. Employees will then have two weeks to decide if they want the job.
We reached out to Authentic about this story, and they declined to comment. We also reached out to Boardriders, but have not heard back. We will update this story if we do.
If the deal closes on Aug. 31, the Boardriders brands will join Authentic’s brand portfolio that totals more than 40 lines, including Volcom, Spyder, Sports Illustrated, Brooks Brothers, Barneys New York, Forever 21, Lucky Brand, Vince Camuto, and Aeropostale among others.
Editor’s Note: For the latest news on the Boardriders acquisition, follow Shop Eat Surf’s coverage here.Â
