Kevin Wulff is back in the game.
The former chief executive of Irvine-based ASICS America Corp. is part of a group that recently purchased Mitchell & Ness Nostalgia Co. from adidas Group.
The deal came about six months after what appeared to be Wulff’s retirement from a career of over 30 years in the sports apparel industry.
The Laguna Beach resident has a minority stake in the 122-year-old Philadelphia-based Mitchell & Ness, a one-time supplier of professional sports uniforms that now focuses on licensed retro jerseys and caps, and generates about $100 million in annual revenue. He took on the company’s chief executive post earlier this month, and is working to establish its operations in Orange County.
The “West Coast presence” for Mitchell & Ness will include an office and distribution space in the 60,000- to 100,000-square-foot range.
“We feel good about the response from [OC commercial landlords] and their willingness to be competitive,” Wulff said of his search. “We hope to have final plans completed within the next 30 to 45 days.”
He’s also looking to hire employees for a “West Coast design center.”
The goal, Wulff said, is “a small-but-core marketing presence, distribution, and more than likely a few other leadership positions that will work out of the office but spend necessary time in Philadelphia, also.”
Private Equity Partner
Wulff led ASICS, a unit of Japan-based ASICS Corp., for five years, guiding a steady climb in sales from about $680 million annually to more than $1 billion in 2014. Gene McCarthy took over for him in January, just as the parent company reported $3.75 billion in revenue for 2015—its Americas market grew 14.5% year-over-year and represented the biggest share of the total—31.8%.
Juggernaut Capital Partners, a Chevy Chase, Md.-based private-equity firm that joined Wulff on the acquisition of Mitchell & Ness, is the majority owner. Both declined to disclose the financial terms of the sale, while Germany-based adidas reported the price in the “the low- to mid-double-digit million euro range,” or an estimated $30 million.
The “Mitchell & Ness brand stands for quality, for nostalgia,” he said. “Our lifestyle team at ASICS—it was a brand they were talking about, and the brand I became aware of. You see it on so many celebrities, and people wearing it at games … to have an opportunity to be a part owner and have a stake in something this exciting, only comes around once in a lifetime.”
Wulff already has overhauled a number of licensing agreements between Mitchell & Ness and the National Basketball Association, National Football League, Major League Baseball, National Hockey League and Major League Soccer. Details on the renegotiations are expected to be announced soon. Most will include contract extensions, exclusive licenses and new product categories.
“A majority (of the deals) have been completed and we are doing just some fine-tuning,” Wulff said. “I think it validates our excitement about the Mitchell & Ness brand, the excitement the leagues have toward the brand and the response, and the ability to increase rights and the terms that we have with each one of the leagues.”
The company—which had its heyday in the early 2000s when hip-hop artists including Jay-Z and Sean John Combs began including the retro jerseys in their stage wardrobes—competes with Ebbets Field Flannels in Seattle, and Knoxville-based apparel company Volunteer Apparel Inc., among others.
Wulff said he has been “meeting with all of our vendors, (and) attended several trade shows to gain insight from retailers across the country and globally.”
Specialty retailers—those with one to five stores—represent Mitchell & Ness’ core business, he said. It also has a robust e-commerce presence, while its biggest wholesale accounts are LIDS Sports Group, Shoe Palace Corp. and Foot Locker Inc.’s namesake retail chain, which also includes Champs Sports stores.
The brand operates one “amazing” store in Philadelphia, but Wulff has bigger brick-and-mortar retail plans.
He wants to open other stores, “limited to markets that we feel will be most successful in locations that sports fans all over the world will have an opportunity to experience.”
