Sweaty Betty, the British maker of £85 sports leggings, has been sold to the American owner of Hush Puppies and Saucony shoes.
The $410 million deal with Wolverine Worldwide will bring a sizeable payout for Tamara Hill Norton, 50, and her husband Simon, 54, the company’s founders who set up the business in Notting Hill, west London, in 1998.
They own a small stake alongside the majority investor L Catteron, the private equity division of Bernard Arnault, the billionaire boss of LVMH, the luxury goods group, and Wittington Investments, the Weston family’s investment firm, which owns Associated British Foods.
Sweaty Betty, whose celebrity fans include the Duchess of Cambridge, Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, has surged in popularity on the back of the athleisure trend, with sales doubling since 2019 as people turned to hoodies and yoga pants while working from home during lockdowns.
The company said that it was on track to make $250 million in sales this year, while Wolverine Worldwide said that the deal would be accretive to earnings within its first year of ownership. In 2019 Sweaty Betty made £80 million in sales and recorded a £1 million loss.
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Brendan Hoffman, president of Wolverine Worldwide, said that there would be a potential for more collaboration between Sweaty Betty and its shoe brands, such as Merrell.
Julia Straus, Sweaty Betty’s chief executive, who will stay on with the company, said that the pandemic had accelerated trends “and, as we find our way back to what the new normal look likes and ways of hybrid working, we think the brand is well equipped for customers who might want to do yoga in the morning before going to the office or cycle back home for a Zoom meeting”.
