Perry Ellis Acquires Gotcha
Miami-based Perry Ellis International, Inc. has completed its acquisition of Irvine, Calif.–based swim and surfwear label Gotcha International for $12 million. The purchase includes the company’s Gotcha, GirlStar, MCD and Fishman logo trademarks.
Perry Ellis has been looking to expand its action sports brand division ever since it acquired Redsand Apparel, an Irvine-based young men’s activewear maker, in 2003. “The plan all along was to have multiple channels of distribution,” said John Sabo, senior vice president of Redsand. Gotcha will be distributed in mid-tier and sporting goods accounts. GirlStar will go to better department stores and specialty accounts, and MCD will be relaunched for Spring 2007 for core surf and skate accounts. “Our action sports brands division promises to be a growth vehicle for [us],” said Seth Ellison, the division’s president.
The apparel giant started talks with Gotcha executives in September, Sabo said, and closed the deal in January. Gotcha’s offices will move to join Redsand in Irvine at Perry Ellis’ West Coast headquarters.
Next is for the company to focus on sorting out Gotcha’s apparel and swimwear licenses. “Gotcha’s basically a licensing company now. Going forward, we’ll be taking a hard look at our licenses and where we have areas of core competency. We’ll be bringing some production in-house,” Sabo said. —Erin Barajas
