Speedo International Parent Company Buys Speedo North America for $170 Million

Pentland Group — the parent company to Speedo International Ltd. — has purchased Speedo North America from PVH, which is also the parent company to brands including clothing giant Calvin Klein.

Pentland bought the brand from PVH for $170 million cash, PVH announced. The transaction is expected to close in April and all current Speedo North America employees will continue their roles under Pentland, according to a release.

“This is an exciting and positive time for the brand, as this strategic business decision will reunite Speedo business globally under Pentland. We are confident team is best positioned to capture the full potential of the iconic brand and its influence,” PVH president of Heritage Brands Sportswear & Speedo USA Geoff Barrett said. “A global Speedo brand will be an undisputable leader in this industry in an especially exciting year with the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.”

Speedo International has operations in Australia, China, Japan, Korea, France, Italy, Israel, Poland and the U.S, according to Bloomberg. This sale appears to unite the national brands under one umbrella.

PVH was previously paying a $1 million annual licensing fee, in perpetuity, to Speedo International Limited for the use of the Speedo brand in North American and the Caribbean. UK-based Pentland owns the rights to an additional slew of major brands including Lacoste, Canterbury and Berghaus.

Once dominant in the competitive swimwear space with its innovative Fastskin and LZR Racer suits, Speedo has recently faced competition from TYR and Arena (the latter especially internationally), as well as up-and-coming brands. Speedo has also pushed into the leisurewear space, launching fashion swimwear and activewear lines.

Current Speedo athlete reps include Caeleb Dressel, Ryan Murphy, Nathan Adrian, Kathleen Baker, Hali Flickinger, Becca Meyers, Kevin Cordes Missy Franklin, Mack Horton, Pernille Blume, Jaz Carlin, and others.

Speedo International and Speedo USA are both SwimSwam partners.

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Wowo
4 years ago

Pvh was killing all of the local dealers- good move

Ponder
4 years ago

Even if some North American management remains, to have these American athlete reps swimming for a company now 100% Australian-backed is dystopian, like a bad Mad Max movie.

Admin
Reply to  Ponder
4 years ago

Pentland is a UK conglomerate, based out of London.

Cynical Observer
Reply to  Braden Keith
4 years ago

Do you happen to know if the US athletes were sponsored by the North American PVH or by the Pentland Group?

Admin
Reply to  Cynical Observer
4 years ago

The big ones as far as I know are sponsored by Speedo North America.

Wowo
Reply to  Cynical Observer
4 years ago

Most were speedo North America but could also model/get deals easily with pvh’s other holdings

Togger
Reply to  Ponder
4 years ago

Pentland’s British.

We’ll stop owning your swimmers when you stop owning our nukes.

Dallas
Reply to  Togger
4 years ago

I’m thinking some of these American swimmers might want to pull a Speedexit given that they are now under Brit control.

Charlie
Reply to  Dallas
4 years ago

I’m not a nationalist by any stretch, but if I am hoping that my kid will swim for Team USA some day, it’s hard for me to justify spending hundred of dollars for a racing suit profiting a UK conglomerate, when there are fine (probably faster, from what I am hearing) suits made by a company or companies based in the USA who design and manufacture their products in the USA.

Gator
Reply to  Charlie
4 years ago

I don’t believe any of the major competition suits are manufactured in the United States

Miami
Reply to  Gator
4 years ago
Samesame
Reply to  Ponder
4 years ago

Really ? Would it really be that bad ?

Olympian
4 years ago

Hopefully now they can come up with a good suit and not just redesigns of the 2010 LZR jammer

Erik
Reply to  Olympian
4 years ago

You mean the kind of suit people can win Olympic Medals and break world records in?…….

Olympian
Reply to  Erik
4 years ago

Erik, if you’re crediting those results to a swim suit I’d strongly recommend you to think again.
Don’t offend athletes and coaches like that.
I might be contradicting myself here… but anyways:
1 – it’s just a suit, if you don’t do the work it won’t swim by itself
2 – Speedo suits have been sucking for a long time, ask around at a World Champs pool deck

Virtus
Reply to  Olympian
4 years ago

My team signed a deal with speedo that we can’t wear any other brand but speedo. Rip my mizunos 😭

Ol' Longhorn
4 years ago

Gotta get me some Speedo leisurewear, then hit the clubs.

Steve
4 years ago

speedo buys speedo to create a speedo monopoly

AfterShock
4 years ago

The unification makes sense. Now why can’t all those Ray’s Pizza shops in NYC unite – Ray’s Pizza, Original Ray’s Pizza, Famous Original Ray’s Pizza, Famous Ray’s Pizza, Ray’s Original Pizza…

Swimmy
Reply to  AfterShock
4 years ago

Carl’s Jr and Hardee’s? 🙂

Natas
Reply to  Swimmy
4 years ago

Checkers and Rally’s?!

Corn Pop
Reply to  AfterShock
4 years ago

Everybody loves Rays .

Chest Rockwell
Reply to  AfterShock
4 years ago

The real Original Rays was on 6th Ave and 11st. The rest are all fakes.

AfterShock
Reply to  Chest Rockwell
4 years ago

According to Wikipedia, the one on 11th st was cited as the first Rays Pizza by Santa Claus in the movie Elf, but then claims that the first Rays Pizza was on 27 Prince Street in Little Italy.

About Torrey Hart

Torrey Hart

Torrey is from Oakland, CA, and majored in media studies and American studies at Claremont McKenna College, where she swam distance freestyle for the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps team. Outside of SwimSwam, she has bylines at Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, SB Nation, and The Student Life newspaper.

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