Growth in leisure wear prompts move from jeans

VF Corp., which rose to prominence on the strength of its Lee and Wrangler jeans, wants to pivot away from denim to focus on the faster-growing trends such as athleisure and outdoor apparel.

The spinoff to shareholders, which will allow VF to focus on brands like North Face, Timberland and Vans, should be completed in next year’s first half, the company said in a statement Monday. The jeans business, which has yet to be named, will remain as a public company based in Greensboro, North Carolina, while VF will move its headquarters to the Denver area — a mecca for outdoor sports enthusiasts.

Sales of denim have slowed as consumers embrace active wear. Separating the businesses will allow management to focus more closely on it, VF said. Jeans production also has overlap with the other product lines, VF Chief Financial Officer Scott Roe said.

“Over time, the business models of the jeanswear business relative to the remaining portion of VF have diverged,” Roe said in an interview. “We just decided that VF is not the best owner of these iconic brands.”

Chief Executive Officer Steven Rendle said snapping up other companies or brands will be a central focus for the new, denim-less version of VF.

“We will be much more in the acquisition mode than we will in the divestiture mode,” he said in an interview. The company may also invest in digital and data analytics.

Share trading on Monday showed investors are skeptical of the move, however. VF shares, which had reached a record high on Aug. 10, plunged as much as 5.2 percent to $91.27, the most intraday in more than three months.

Scott Baxter, VF’s group president for its Americas West division, will be CEO of the new company, while finance executive Rustin Welton will be chief financial officer, VF said.

The new jeans company would have estimated annual revenue of more than $2.5 billion, compared with more than $11 billion for the rest of VF. The existing company’s faster-growing product lines have driven shareprice gains, with the stock up 30 percent this year before Monday’s decline.

In a conference call with investors, company officials said VF’s shareholders at the time of the spinoff will own 100 percent of both companies, with the final distribution ratio determined “later in the process.”

Paul Sakuma / Associated Press Wrangler jeans are displayed at a store in Hayward, Calif. VF Corp. says it plans to split into two publicly traded companies, with one focusing on clothing and footwear and the other concentrating on jeans and its outlet businesses.