North Face leaving Bay Area
Company heading to Denver; hundreds of employees will be offered the chance to move
The North Face is packing up all that gear and moving its headquarters, along with hundreds of jobs, out of the Bay Area.
The outdoor activewear and gear maker’s parent company, VF Corp., announced this week that it is splitting its outdoors and denim businesses into two publicly traded companies. The outdoors operation in Alameda — which includes the North Face, backpack maker JanSport and an innovation center that altogether employ 650 workers — is moving to Denver, which beckons with $27 million in tax incentives.
“Every associate in Alameda will have an opportunity to relocate and stay with the company,” a VF spokesman said Wednesday.
North Face was founded in San Francisco in 1966 by hiking enthusiasts Douglas and Susan Tompkins, also of Esprit fame. The company’s California origins are reflected in the North Face’s quarter-circle logo, which evokes Half Dome in Yosemite.
When asked if that logo will change, the spokesman said, “Our Yosemite-inspired Half Dome logo will continue to remind us of our roots in California and the five amazing decades spent here.”
He said no stores will close as a result of the headquarters move, which is expected to begin next year and be completed by 2020.
Steve Rendle will remain CEO of the outdoors
brand, which will retain the VF name.
“Our jeans business and the remainder of VF have evolved differently over time, resulting in two separate and distinct businesses, with unique investment identities and operating models,” Rendle said, according to a transcript of
a conference call Monday.
Also Monday, a Colorado Economic Development Commission press release quoted Rendle as saying, “We are grateful to Colorado for the job growth tax credits that represent a longterm commitment to our company and we want to make a long-term commitment to the people of Colorado.”
Other brands that will be under the VF umbrella in Colorado are Vans, Timberland,
Dickies and several more, which have a combined estimated annual revenue of more than $11 billion.
“Co-locating these brands at a shared headquarters at the base of the Rocky Mountains will simplify our operating structure and better enable us to collaborate across brands and functions,” Rendle said during the call.
VF said it expects to
complete the companies’ split, which must be approved by shareholders and regulators, in the first half of 2019. The denim company, with estimated annual sales of about $2.5 billion and which includes the Lee and Wrangler brands, will have its headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina, where its parent company VF is now based. The denim company does not yet have a name.