From aspiring writer to millionaire
CANADA GOOSE CEO TRANSFORMS LUXURY BRAND
• Dani Reiss had no intention of running a billion- dollar clothing empire when he joined his dad’s shop making winter parkas 20 years ago. He was an English literature graduate from the University of Toronto, looking for a few bucks to finance his travel plans. “The last thing I ever thought I would do was work for my parents in the family business,” Reiss said in an interview last year. “I wanted to be a short-story writer; I wanted to write fiction.”
Reiss skipped the writing in the end, sticking around to transform Canada Goose Holdings Inc. into one of the most valuable luxury brands in the world, selling $900 down coats to everyone from park rangers to Drake.
His overhaul of the 60- year- old company started by his grandfather paid dividends this week with an initial public offering. After two days of trading, the business has a market value of $2.41 billion. Reiss, 43, took home almost $ 70 million from the deal, selling 4.1 million shares at $ 17 each. He maintains a 24- per- cent stake in the company, worth another $ 557 million after the stock surged 27 per cent on the first day of trading in Toronto.
His partners at Bain Capital, the private equity firm, still hold a 57-per-cent stake after pocketing $ 123 million from selling shares, based on figures in the IPO documents. Bain’s stake after the IPO is worth about $1.3 billion.
Canada Goose rose for a second day Friday, gaining 6.3 per cent to $ 23.00 at the close in Toronto.
To get a sense of how much t he company has grown under Reiss and Bain, consider that the company was valued at just US$ 250 million when Bain bought a 70 per cent stake in 2013, people familiar with the matter have said. Terms weren’t disclosed at the time.
Reiss, who rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange Thursday before flying back to close the market in Toronto, says he has no plans to slow down after going public.
After posting annual sales growth of 38 per cent over the past three years, Reiss is now scanning the globe for additional opportunities to expand. With two- thirds of Canada Goose’s nearly $400 million in sales coming from Canada and the U. S., the company needs to extend to Europe and Asia, Reiss said.
“We definitely believe that we can continue to grow,” Reiss said in an interview with Bloomberg TV Canada from his Toronto head office. Employees there toasted the IPO with wine, as white balloons with GOOS — the ticker symbol — hovered over work stations.
The high- end clothing company, which opened its first two retail outlets in New York and Toronto last year, is targeting three more in 2018. The long- term goal is 15 to 20 stores, according to the IPO prospectus.
“We’re going to open stores in the best and biggest and most vibrant cities in the world,” he said, citing Tokyo and Paris as examples. “As we build the direct-to-consumers channel, as we lead with ecommerce, it’s also important to have some stores” as gathering places where consumers can learn about the brand.
The company has “a lot of runway’’ in Europe, he said. “Asia is a very strong market and China is a huge widespace opportunity for us that we’re really, really excited about.’’
Since so much of t he brand is tied to Canada’s north, Reiss has no plans to shift production to the U. S., even as U. S. President Donald Trump considers a border tax to encourage more manufacturing there.
“We make our core products in Canada and we’re very focused on continuing to do that,” Reiss said. “We have a great trade relationship with the U.S. and I think we’re very well positioned to deal with whatever happens politically.”