Background
Franco Apparel Group is a leading designer, producer, and marketer of high-quality children’s apparel. The Company sells a broad range of products for newborns, infants, toddlers, boys, girls, and juniors under proprietary and licensed brands, as well as private label programs to major retailers. Franco Apparel holds a considerable market position in the children’s athletic apparel market through the acquisition of exclusively licensed rights which entitle the Company to produce and distribute official on-the-field Major League Baseball (MLB) and National Basketball Association (NBA) products. It is a licensee of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The Company is also recognized as a leader in quality cotton basics (where Franco built its initial niche), manufacturing and marketing high quality garments under well known labels such as Laura Ashley, Eddie Bauer, Hello Kitty, Little Bitty and Baby, Inc.
Core Competencies
Over its 20-year history, Franco Apparel has become a multidimensional enterprise with a strong and stable base of customers, broadly diversified distribution channels, a large portfolio of successful brands and licenses, and an extensive overseas sourcing network. Since the Company’s inception, Franco Apparel has always posted positive annual operating profit. As the Company has grown and added categories and products, management has maintained its primary focus on design and product development, incorporating innovative fabric and production technologies while continually keeping ahead of fashion trends.
Franco Apparel benefits from long-standing partnerships and strong relationships with leading national and multinational retailers. It possesses a diversified customer base that includes mass merchants, wholesale clubs, department stores, sporting goods retailers, specialty chain stores, and boutiques. The Company currently sells to over 500 active customers in over ten countries. The Company’s infrastructure is well suited to support growth, with expertise in design and product development, supply chain management and logistics, manufacturing and distribution.
Company Heritage
Since Franco Apparel’s founding in 1988, the Company has remained faithful to its corporate philosophy of producing quality products with reliability and unparalleled workmanship. The Company’s seasoned management team has created a powerful apparel merchandising platform with expertise spanning the entire childrenswear market. Today, Franco Apparel, enjoys a strong reputation for innovation, quality and reliability in the children’s apparel market, and has received numerous industry accolades for its achievements.
Product Lines
Since its inception, Franco Apparel has focused on childrenswear, specifically for newborns, infants, toddlers, boys and girls. Its diversified product assortment encompasses dresses, layette, playwear, activewear, sportswear, team branded athletic apparel, sleepwear and loungewear.
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Proprietary Labels and Licensed
Franco Apparel has proven itself an adept and expert manager of owned and licensed brand equity:
Little Bitty
Little Bitty is an upscale collection of traditional dresses and dresswear for infants, toddlers and girls. Franco Apparel acquired the Little Bitty trademark in 2000, and it has been used as a platform to enter the woven categories, targeting mid- and upper-tier department stores such as Macy’s, Kohl’s, JC Penney and Dillard’s, as well as specialty retailers.
Baby Inc.
Baby Inc. is a line of moderately- and promotionally-priced gift oriented key item basics for layette, newborns and infants with a European driven style. Franco Apparel launched Baby Inc. in 1995, and it currently targets mid-tier department stores and specialty stores.
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Athletic Licensed Brands
Professional Sports Leagues
The major sports leagues - MLB, NBA, NHL, NFL and NCAA have had numerous product licenses over the past twenty years. Throughout this period the sports leagues have had various master license agreements with companies such as Rawlings, Adidas, Starter, Russell Athletic and Majestic.
Franco Apparel has consistently
been the “go-to” company for these sports licenses to handle the childrenswear
portion of their licensed sports apparel business. As a result, Franco’s
position as a key supplier of children’s team and athletic wear has grown
significantly over the recent past.
Majestic Athletic / VF Imagewear
Majestic Athletic is the leading provider of authentic sports licensed apparel and branded team uniforms for Major League Baseball. Through our licensing partnership, Franco and Majestic are committed to craftsmanship, design, and innovation that extend beyond outfitting Major League athletes. Franco Apparel prides itself on offering its young consumers worldwide an authentic connection to their sports heroes, with the use of official colors, designs, fabrics. If it happens in baseball, it happens in Majestic.
Kid Athlete
Kid Athlete is a Franco Apparel proprietary label that is co-branded with NCAA. The label has been positioned in football and basketball related apparel for infants, toddlers, boys, girls and youth sizes 4-20. Kid Athlete licenses college logos directly from certain colleges and universities as well as from the license administrators for the larger colleges and universities. Garments are co-branded with both the Kid Athlete neck label and hang tag and the schools’ logos.
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Lifestyle and Character Brands
Franco’s lifestyle and character brand business is an important part of the Company’s strategy to transition to a branded company and to reduce reliance on private label sales. This segment has been a consistent performer which management intends to further develop in the future.
Laura Ashley
Laura Ashley, a household name within department and specialty stores, is an iconic lifestyle collection inspired by Welsh designer Laura Ashley’s European signature prints. Franco Apparel markets Laura Ashley branded layette, playwear, sportswear, underwear, sleepwear and dresses, in sizes from newborn through 6x. Franco Apparel sells Laura Ashley products to department stores and specialty stores. Management is exploring the opportunity to expand its territory under the license to include the United Kingdom and continental Europe.
New Balance and Eddie Bauer
Franco Apparel has had relationships with New Balance since 2003 and Eddie Bauer since 2004. The Company has historically had success with these lifestyle brands; however channels for growth were limited. New Balance lacked an adult apparel line, and larger retail chains often did not carry children’s lines without the adult brand. Eddie Bauer had limited marketing of its brand outside its own retail stores, thereby limiting market share and exposure.
Hello Kitty and Barney
The Company has taken on two new character license brands over the past year, Hello Kitty and Barney. Hello Kitty is licensed for distribution of girls athletic-inspired sportswear and active wear for sale to sporting goods and specialty stores; in addition may target the better department stores such as Nordstrom. The Barney license is for newborn, infant and youth, including T-shirts and dresses for sizes 0-20 in boys and 0-16 in girls.
