(Bloomberg) — LVMH has agreed to sell fashion house Marc Jacobs to a joint venture between WHP Global and G-III Apparel Group, in a rare divestment move by the world’s biggest luxury group as it adjusts to weaker demand.
Financial terms were not disclosed, although G-III said in a regulatory filing that it plans to invest up to $425 million in the joint venture, which will be split equally. Jacobs, the brand’s founder, will continue as creative director of the affordable luxury label, the companies said Thursday.
The Marc Jacobs brand adds to WHP Global’s growing portfolio of businesses, which includes Vera Wang and Rag & Bone. The acquisition will increase the brand management group’s annual revenue to more than $9.5 billion, according to the company.
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Controlled by billionaire Bernard Arnault, LVMH has around 75 brands, including Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior and Loewe, and has held a majority stake in Marc Jacobs since 1997. The deal allows the group to capitalize on the brand’s years-long recovery, while divesting itself of an asset in the affordable luxury category to focus on its higher-end offerings.
Marc Jacobs has never quite fit into LVMH’s typical brand development formula, which involves repositioning brands in higher-end segments and expanding them globally. Similarly, the company sold the Donna Karan brand to G-III in 2016 after struggling to generate profitable growth in the business.
Bloomberg had reported in 2024 that LVMH was evaluating options for Marc Jacobs.
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Shares in LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton fell 1.8% in negotiations in Paris and are down almost 30% this year.
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Role at Vuitton
Marc Jacobs spent 16 years as artistic director of Louis Vuitton, helping transform the hard-bag maker into the world’s biggest luxury brand, adding ready-to-wear lines and collaborating with artists like Kanye West.
A New York native, he stepped down in 2013 and returned to his eponymous brand, which he had founded alongside business partner Robert Duffy in 1984.
While it was unusual for LVMH, known for its appetite for acquisitions, to sell its brands, that may be changing: Last year, Chief Financial Officer Cécile Cabanis said on an earnings call that the company would not maintain labels “if we believe they are not a good complement or that we are not the appropriate operator.”
LVMH has also sold its stakes in the brands Off-White and Stella McCartney.
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More exclusive
Demand for luxury goods has cooled in recent years as even industry heavyweights such as LVMH and Hermès International SCA have seen more moderate growth. Expectations earlier this year that the industry was about to emerge from its weak phase dissipated with the outbreak of war in the Middle East, which reduced demand in the region and worsened global economic prospects.
Amid the slowdown, more exclusive brands, such as LVMH’s Loro Piana and Brunello Cucinelli, a maker of high-end cashmere clothing, have generally held up better than more affordable luxury labels.
As part of the Marc Jacobs deal, G-III, which owns brands including Karl Lagerfeld and Sonia Rykiel, will “acquire and operate certain portions of the brand’s global consumer and wholesale business,” according to the statement.
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