Company Announces Plans to Sell Nautica

US apparel group VF Corp. is on a mission to divest its Nautica brand, saying the decision to sell met the “held-for-sale and discontinued operations accounting criteria”.

VF Corp. bought Nautica Enterprises Inc. in 2003 for $586 million.

The company, which owns the North Face, Vans and Timberland, said it had decided to sell Nautica during the fourth quarter and has classified it as a discontinued business.

It follows VF Corp’s decision in early 2017 to sell off Licensed Sports Group and after it sold its Contemporary Brands business in 2016.

The news coincided with VF Corp’s fourth-quarter results released on Friday.

For the three months ended December 30, net losses were $90.3 million, or $0.23 cents per diluted share, compared to net income of $264.3 million, or $0.63 cents, a year ago. On an adjusted basis, earnings per share were $1.01.

However, revenue for the quarter increased 20 percent to $3.6 billion, which included a $247 million contribution from the company’s acquisition of Williamson-Dickie, a global workwear company, in October. This was a touch below analysts’ estimations of US$3.66bn.

Full year 2017 revenue increased seven percent to $11.8 billion. Excluding the Williamson-Dickie acquisition, full-year revenue increased five percent.

“VF’s fourth quarter results were stronger than we expected as growth continues to accelerate across core dimensions of our portfolio,” said Steve Rendle, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “We remain in the early phase of a multi-year journey to become a purpose led, agile, consumer centric organization. I am pleased with our early progress and look forward to building on our momentum in 2018.”