Ted Baker is bringing all footwear that bears its name back in-house.
The luxury fashion label said Monday that it has entered into an agreement with Pentland Group, which has been its footwear licensee since 2001, to acquire the No Ordinary Shoes Limited and No Ordinary Shoes USA LLC labels for 13 million pounds ($17 million), plus an adjustment for net assets between 4 million and 8 million pounds ($5.21 million to $10.42 million).
The purchase will return licensing rights for Ted Baker footwear to its namesake company.
In a statement announcing the acquisition, Ted Baker reported that the combined sales of the acquired assets were 39.8 million pounds ($51.8 million) in 2017. The transaction is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2018 and will be financed by the existing banking structure within Ted Baker.
In a statement released by Ted Baker, Richard Newcombe, president of the global footwear division at Pentland touted the growth of No Ordinary Shoes during its time with his company.
“Since becoming the Ted Baker footwear licensee in 2001, we’ve grown the footwear category by more than 800% and increased distribution from 60 retailer partners in 8 markets, to over 200 in 28 markets,” Newcombe said. “We have worked closely with the team at Ted to ensure our strategies are perfectly aligned, and that the product captures what makes Ted Baker such a special and unique brand.”
Ted Baker’s founder and CEO Ray Kelvin described the move as a commitment to continued growth as an international force in lifestyle and apparel.
“This is an exciting opportunity for Ted Baker 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,” Kelvin said.
Ted Baker currently operates stores 532 stores in markets across the U.K., Europe, North America, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Australia.