00:00Today on Forbes, Lululemon's cancelled founder scores billions with Finnish athleisure venture.
00:09Back in 1998, Chip Wilson predicted that yoga would be one of the next big trends in retail.
00:15He launched Lululemon that year in his home city of Vancouver, Canada.
00:19That decision catalyzed the so-called athleisure movement, making it cool and stylish to wear
00:25athletic clothing every day.
00:28In late 2023, the now 68-year-old Wilson, whose estimated net worth is over $7.5 billion,
00:36had another prediction.
00:38He told Forbes, quote,
00:39I feel like I'm right in the middle of the biggest change in the way people have dressed
00:43in the history of the world.
00:46Wilson was not talking about Lululemon, the company he founded but where he left his role
00:50as chair of the board in 2013 amid controversy following his comments about women's bodies.
00:56He was referring to the success of his newer investment, Helsinki, Finland-based sportswear
01:02outfit Amor Sports, the parent company of outdoors brands like Arcteryx, outerwear,
01:08Wilson tennis rackets, Salomon running shoes and ski gear, and Atomic, ski gear.
01:14In 2019, right around the time Lululemon revoked his right to nominate a director to its board,
01:20the entrepreneur spent around $1.1 billion of cash from selling Lululemon shares to buy
01:26a nearly 21% stake in Amor Sports.
01:29He was part of an investor group led by Anta, the owner of Fila and the largest athletic
01:34company in China, that spent a combined $5.2 billion to take over the Finnish conglomerate.
01:41His stake in the company is now worth about $3.2 billion, double its value when it went
01:47public in February 2024.
01:50Wilson bought an additional $324 million worth of shares at the IPO.
01:55His stake in the company is just $200 million less than his remaining 7% stake in Lululemon,
02:00whose stock has dropped about 16% over the past year amid rising competition from the
02:05likes of Alo Yoga and Vori.
02:08Despite having no active role in running the company, Wilson is still Lululemon's largest
02:13individual shareholder, and occasionally a thorn in its side.
02:18Wilson has also made a decent return so far investing in Anta directly.
02:22He bought nearly 16 million shares of the Chinese conglomerate back in 2019 for $100
02:27million.
02:28They are now worth $160 million.
02:32In an interview in late 2023, Wilson told Forbes his key focus was on Amor, whose sales
02:37are predicted to surpass $5.1 billion in 2024, up from $4.4 billion in 2023 and $2.5 billion
02:46in 2021.
02:48Wilson said, quote,
02:49It's just where my brain is probably 90% of the time.
02:54Wilson serves on the company's board of directors with Anta co-founder Ding Shijiang, medical
02:59scrub maker Figgs co-founder Trina Speer, and former CEO of Hugo Boss Bruno Souser.
03:06The Lululemon billionaire also said he was attempting to transform Amor brands from,
03:10quote,
03:11very male, very engineering, very wholesale focused, to be more appealing to the everyday
03:16customer.
03:18Amor's biggest markets in 2023, the last year the data was available, were in the Americas,
03:23which made up about 40% of its revenue, and Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, which
03:29comprised a combined 33%.
03:32But that is changing as its business in China and Asia-Pacific grows rapidly, up 54% and
03:3842% during the first nine months of 2024, according to the latest financial results,
03:43eclipsing the tepid pace of growth in the other key markets by a factor of sevenfold
03:48and tenfold, respectively.
03:51According to Morningstar analyst Ivan Su, Amor's recent success is tied directly to
03:56the booming popularity of outdoor wear in China.
04:00Su explains, quote,
04:01In the U.S. and Europe, outdoor apparel has always been there.
04:05But in China, outdoor is something that only started to become mainstream during COVID-19.
04:12For full coverage, check out Jemima McAvoy's piece on Forbes.com.
04:18This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.
04:20Thanks for tuning in.
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