Aug. 21, 2026 "Possible new Roots owner threads plan for global growth": Today I found this article on BNN Bloomberg:
TORONTO — The New York private equity firm that has signed an agreement to buy Roots Corp. wants to take the storied Canadian brand and export it to the rest of the world.
If the proposed deal goes through, Marquee Brands, the firm behind
Martha Stewart,
Laura Ashley
and Roberto Cavalli,
says growth will be a top priority.
Chief executive Heath Golden said Friday that he envisions his company bringing Roots to big markets like Korea, India and Mexico and expanding the small presence it already has in the U.S. and China.
“Many of our partners around the world want to be a part of bringing Roots into different markets,”
he said in an interview.
“So we think the sky is the limit for this brand.”
Roots has more than 100 corporate-owned stores in Canada
but just two in the U.S.,
where it’s been working to expand.
A partner operates another 100 shops in Asia
and the brand also has a presence on T-mall, Alibaba Group’s popular Chinese platform.
But Golden won’t just lean on global markets for growth.
He also wants Roots to build out its
home,
camping
and hospitality businesses
without forgetting,
well, its roots.
The retailer was started by Michigan natives Michael Budman and Don Green, who met at an Ontario summer camp in the sixties and decided to open what eventually became Roots north of the border in 1973.
The brand, which sells apparel like sweatpants and leather accessories including bags, has since become a beloved symbol of Canadiana.
“The DNA of the brand is incredible,” said Golden, who labelled himself a “longtime admirer of Roots and father of two girls who have the company’s clothing in their closets.
“It is loved in its home market and it is loved around the world, so nothing here is broken.
This is really about just continuing to build it out.”
He offered his insights into Marquee’s hopes for the brand a day after Roots announced it has agreed to be acquired for $4.10 per share in cash — the result of a strategic review the retailer kicked off in March.
Its shares were up more than 10 per cent or roughly 35 cents to $4.06 in mid-morning trading Friday.
The deal still needs shareholder and regulatory approval but if it proceeds,
Marquee will use JM&A Design and Development Inc. to
develop,
manufacture
and distribute
Roots clothing for Canadian and U.S. stores.
JM&A is led by Joseph Mimran, the Canadian fashion visionary behind
Joe Fresh,
Club Monaco
and Alfred Sung.
He’s also the chairman of hat brand Tilley Endurables,
clothing retailer Kit and Ace
and toy shop Mastermind Toys.
Mimran was drawn to the partnership, in part because of how involved Marquee gets in its brands.
“When you have a partner like that, as opposed to somebody who just looks at a brand
as a cash cow,
it makes a huge difference,”
he said in the same interview with Golden.
“This is a very emotional brand.
It’s an emotional brand for Canada
and if you don’t have vested emotional owners,
this thing can go terribly wrong.”
For now, it appears the two are on the same page,
sharing a goal of figuring out how they can best steward the brand
but also tailor it to a global audience.
It’s a lofty task, Mimran admits, but one he feels more than prepared for, especially because founder Green sent him a “beautiful” note expressing confidence in the arrangement.
“I always feel pressure,” Mimran said.
“This is a pressure-filled industry.
It’s season by season,
it’s a product at a time,
but I’ve been doing it for a long time.”
The key will be nailing the product side of the business
because that’s what customers care about,
Mimran said.
While the specifics of how the brand could transform under its possible new ownership are still taking shape, Roots CEO Meghan Roach signalled she doesn’t expect anything dramatic.
“I don’t think you going to see a Roots brand that doesn’t look like the brand you expect,” she said.
“I think you’re going to see this team putting in place
a lot exciting things
that are going to bring the brand forward in really good ways.”
Roach and Golden demurred when asked if she’d be staying in the top role following a sale. Roach said it was too early for such decisions.
She joined Roots as interim chief financial officer about seven years ago, rising later to its top job.
Before that, Roach had worked at private equity firm Searchlight Capital Partners L.P., which bought a majority stake in Roots from its founders in 2015.
Under Roach, the goal was to return the retailer to a position of strength.
She worked to do that by moving the retailer
away from markdowns
and fashioning itself into more of a prestige brand
that occasionally partnered with the popular franchises like the Toronto Blue Jays and Toronto Tempo.
---
Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 21, 2026.
Sept. 7, 2026 "New Lululemon CEO faces multifront battle to refashion company’s edge": Today I found this article on BNN Bloomberg:
Come Tuesday, Heidi O’Neill will likely have the loftiest to-do list in all of Canadian retail.
The former Nike executive is taking over one of the country’s most cherished brands — Lululemon Athletica Inc. — at a time when it’s lost a lot of its lustre.
Her job? Prove the 28-year-old athleisure retailer is down but not out.
“It’s a herculean task,” said Richard Leblanc, a governance, law and ethics professor at York University.
“The targets are moving
and there are divergent interests
and expectations from
stakeholders,
customers,
employees,
investors,
the founder,
board members,
competitors.
It will be very challenging.”
While the Vancouver-based company still notches the kind of revenues most Canadian retailers would be envious of,
they’ve been shrinking
and the company’s Nasdaq-listed stock price has dropped from its peak of around
US$500 in December 2023
to roughly $100 lately.
It’s been criticized for a lack of
new styles,
had to temporarily remove a leggings line that was too see-through
and abandoned another that gave customers’ backsides a whale tail look.
Overshadowing much of that up until recently was an
ugly, public spat with its founder,
who’s grown incensed by the direction of the company
and its inability to keep up with hot, new competitors like Alo and Vuori.
O’Neill will take Lululemon’s reins months after that founder, Chip Wilson, agreed in May to pause disparaging the brand — but she still has her work cut out for her.
“She’s fighting a multifront war,” said Leblanc.
“It’s investors,
talent,
the boardroom
and strategy,
so she really has to have her ducks in line
and hit the ground running on day one.”
Lululemon declined to comment for this story or make O’Neill available for an interview.
However, it pointed The Canadian Press toward a Thursday call with analysts where interim chief executive Meghan Frank said the company expects O’Neill
“will take a deep dive into the business,
evaluating our strategy
and current action plan.”
Among O’Neill’s first tasks will be building relations with a fractured board,
including two new members hand-picked by Wilson in exchange for an 18-month break from him publicly attacking the brand.
A third board pick, with apparel product and brand experience, has been promised to him by Oct. 1 but has yet to be named.
Making sure the board members and O’Neill are all on the same page is crucial from the start because it can impact
how much resistance a CEO’s ideas will face in the future
and how much leeway they are given to govern.
“What you don’t want … is a new CEO fighting the board.
You want the board and the CEO to be aligned,
so the CEO can focus her 2,500 hours a year
on beating the competition
and creating shareholder value,”
Leblanc said.
At the same time, O’Neill will have to
rebuild the company’s ranks
and quickly inspire loyalty.
When Lululemon carried out a layoff last year that partially struck its headquarters,
it sent unaffected staff fleeing to nearby rivals like Arc’teryx,
said Laurent Vasilescu, senior analyst at BNP Paribas Equity Research, in a recent note to investors.
The last year of turmoil has only exacerbated that flow, he said.
In August, Lululemon lost its chief artificial intelligence and technology officer after less than a year
and its longtime chief strategy officer after 14.
Its chief communications officer was also scheduled to leave days before O’Neill took the helm.
Departures so close to a new CEO’s reign are “increasingly concerning,”
Vasilescu said, while predicting
“there may be more employee turnover over the coming months.”
Retail watchers say the transformation O’Neill will have to preside over should repair Lululemon’s executive ranks as much as its store shelves.
“Lululemon has lost its innovative edge.
It has become boring and predictable,
and it’s simply not justifying its price points in the way it once did,”
Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, said.
“The response to this so far has been to try and add more general casualwear pieces to the assortment.
Unfortunately, this has confused some shoppers and has weakened Lululemon’s reputation for being on the cutting edge of athleisure.”
Lululemon needs to get back to convincing customers its products are worth the premium prices
by launching merchandise that prioritizes fit and comfort,
innovating with new fabrics and technology
and injecting fashion into final designs,
Saunders reasons.
An update to Lululemon stores also wouldn’t hurt. Some of its locations are looking “quite uninteresting,” he said.
If Lululemon refreshed its product offerings and stores,
Saunders thinks it would help win back customers and get them to spend more.
That, in turn, would help with what he sees as the company’s biggest challenge:
convincing critics Lululemon hasn’t hit its North American ceiling.
Analysts have worried Lululemon has saturated its home market as it can
because recent quarters brought declines in its North American revenues.
Turning things around won’t be easy because the market is
“way more competitive”
and athleisure spending has slowed,
Saunders said.
Yet he thinks O’Neill can more than handle these tasks.
While Lululemon’s stock dipped after her April appointment announcement, she’s no retail rookie.
He credits her with transforming Nike’s women’s business
from a sub-category
into a multi-billion-dollar growth driver.
Lululemon said she was also instrumental in
reducing Nike’s product development timelines,
speeding up its release schedule
and shaping the business into a US$45 billion global leader.
While many investors will want to see that same prowess at Lululemon, Leblanc thinks they won’t have much patience.
After all, they spent the winter and spring waiting for Lululemon to name its next CEO and then,
the summer waiting for O’Neill to start while the clock ticked down on Wilson’s silence.
They’ll want her to quickly find her footing,
deliver a turnaround plan
and win their loyalty,
he said, so “the pressure is on to get it right coming out of the gate.”
This report by Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press, was first published Sept. 6, 2026.
No comments:
Post a Comment