Aeropostale, Forever 21 Owner Authentic Brands Exploring IPO: What Investors Should Know

The owner of several retail brands and a licensing business could hit the public markets with a $10 billion IPO being explored for 2021.

What Happened: Authentic Brands is the owner of Aeropostale, Brooks Brothers, Juicy Couture, Forever 21, Barneys New York, Airwalk, Frederick’s of Hollywood, Lucky Brand, Nautica, Sports Illustrated and Tapout.

The company also owns the licensing business for celebrities such as Elvis Presley, Muhammad Ali and Marilyn Monroe.

An IPO could value the company at $10 billion according to Bloomberg. BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE: BLK) is among the investors in Authentic Brands.

Related Link: IGT To Develop Elvis Presley Themed Lottery Games 

Partnerships: Over the past several years, Authentic Brands has scooped up brands on the verge of bankruptcy.

Authentic Brands partnered with several mall landlords to buy Aeropostale and other brands.

The company has a joint venture with Simon Property Group Inc (NYSE: SPG) called SPARC LLC, which has annual sales of $8.6 billion. SPARC LLC owns Aeropostale, Brooks Brothers, Forever 21, Lucky Brand and Nautica, and it recently announced a deal to acquire Eddie Bauer.

Brookfield Property Partners (NASDAQ: BPY) had partnered with Authentic Brands in the acquisition of Forever 21 but has since swapped its stake for equity in Authentic Brands.

Why It’s Important: Authentic Brands has a portfolio of more than 30 brands and has annual retail sales of more than $10 billion.

The company has more than 700 partners and 5,950 retail stores for its owned brands.

Authentic Brands scooped up many struggling brick and mortar retail companies and has put an emphasis on growing e-commerce sales and improving the physical retail footprint.

The company’s joint venture with Simon Property helped with potential struggles at many of the top malls in the country.

Authentic Brands could be a reopening stock play for investors and a play on the shift from physical to e-commerce through omnichannel strategies.

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(Photo: Authentic Brands)