Ted Baker spends £21m on footwear

TED Baker is buying back the rights to sell its own footwear brand for as much as £21m.

The fashion chain will spend between £17m and £21m buying the licence from Pentland Brands, which has run Ted Baker’s shoe sales since 2001 and also sells products on behalf of Hunter Boots, Karen Millen and Speedo.

Sales of Ted Baker’s licensed footwear business hit £39.8m last year, compared to revenues of £591.7m of clothing and accessories across its inhouse business.

The retailer will pay £13m for the license for No Ordinary Shoes and No Ordinary Shoes USA and an additional fee of between £4m and £8m once the acquisition completes, which is expected to be on December 31.

Ray Kelvin, 63, founder and chief executive of the fashion brand, said: ‘This is an exciting opportunity for us to drive further growth in our footwear business by leveraging our global footprint and infrastructure, in line with our strategy to further develop Ted Baker as a global lifestyle brand.’