The evolution of Irvine-based St. John Knits International Inc. under Chief Executive Richard Cohen continues.
In a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the women’s clothing designer said it plans to refinance its debt. The move is designed to retire company debt due in 2009.
After that, St. John said it plans to stop reporting financial results to the SEC.
St. John is privately held but has reported quarterly and yearly financial results for holders of its debt.
The company also said it plans to buy 450,000 shares of stock from trusts controlled by the founding Gray family at $30 per share, or about $13.5 million.
The move is the latest since Cohen took over the running of St. John in August. His biggest move has been to bring in four executives from big apparel companies. Cohen himself came from the U.S. arm of Italy’s Gruppo Ermenegildo Zegna.
The Grays,retired patriarch Robert, wife Marie, St. John’s chief designer, and daughter Kelly, who serves as creative director and model,have been a big part of the company’s identity since its 1962 founding.
In 1989, the Grays sold a majority stake to Germany’s Escada AG, which took St. John public in 1993. Six years later, the Gray family took the company private in a $520 million deal financed by New York-based Vestar Capital Partners, the company’s majority owner today.
