Liz Claiborne Inc. Sells Liz Claiborne Brand

Liz Claiborne, Inc. has entered into definitive agreements to sell the worldwide rights for the Liz Claiborne family of brands as well as the U.S. and Puerto Rico rights for the Monet brand to J.C. Penney Company Inc. for $267.5 million.

Meanwhile, the company completed the sale of the Dana Buchman brand to Kohl's, and has agreed to sell the Kensie, Kensiegirl and Mac & Jac brands to affiliates of Bluestar Alliance. Total cash proceeds from these announcements equal approximately $328 million, of which $308 million represents sale proceeds.
 

The company has also agreed with Donna Karan International to an early termination of its DKNY Jeans and DKNY Active license. Consummation of the Liz Claiborne, Monet and Kensie sale transactions is subject to customary closing conditions, and these transactions are expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2011.
 

Liz Claiborne Inc. is exploring options for a new corporate name that will better reflect its focus on building and growing three global lifestyle brands — Juicy Couture, Lucky Brand and kate spade. The company will share the new name for the corporation at the appropriate time.
 

William L. McComb, chief executive officer of Liz Claiborne, Inc., said: “Over the past few years, we have worked diligently to turn this into a more efficient, dynamic, brand-centric, retail-based company, and today marks the culmination of these efforts. At the close of these transactions, at a time when most economists in the world are now agreeing that major European and the U.S. markets are facing significant risks of another recession, we will be a more appropriately levered, more capital efficient, growth-oriented company.”
 

Myron E. Ullman, III, chairman and chief executive officer, J.C. Penney Company, said, “This is the culmination of our extremely successful partnership with Liz Claiborne Inc. The brands we are acquiring hold tremendous appeal for our customers, and the performance of the Liz Claiborne and Claiborne brands at jcpenney has consistently exceeded our high expectations. We will now build on that strength to accelerate the brands’ performance.”