Onward Holdings, one of Japan's largest multi-brand fashion conglomerates, announced Monday that it had agreed to buy Jil Sander from current owners, equity fund Change Capital Partners, for about $244 million.
This is an interesting development since Onward Kashiyama, a subsidiary of Onward Holdings, has achieved less-than-stellar performance with its home-grown apparel brands for the past couple of years.
Apparently Onward is hoping to bolster worldwide profits with the acquisition. Jill Sanders used to have a tremendous amount of brand equity, but the brand suffered under its ownership by Prada from 1999 to 2006. Change Capital Partners successfully turned the brand around in just a couple of years by tapping Raf Simons as creative director and by restructuring the business to control costs. They purchased Jil Sanders in 2006 for about $144 million.
Onward Holdings already owns U.K.-based casual lux brand Joseph, and Onward-Kashiyama holds Japan licenses for several more international brands including ck Calvin Klein, Paul Smith, Michael Kors, Strenesse, Missoni and Gianfranco Ferre.
