Rocky Brands, Inc. and Williamson-Dickie Manufacturing Company have announced that they have reached a mutual agreement under which Williamson-Dickie will bring its Dickies footwear business in-house effective Jan. 1, 2011.
Rocky Brands has served as the exclusive licensee of Dickies footwear since January 2005 when it acquired EJ Footwear. The existing license agreement is set to expire Dec. 31, 2010.
Mike Brooks, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer stated, We have enjoyed partnering with Dickies to create top quality, value priced footwear for the American worker. With their acquisition of Kodiak Group Holdings in 2008, a Canadian based apparel and footwear manufacturer, we anticipated it would be difficult for us to retain the Dickies® footwear license beyond 2010 and we have been taking steps to replace that business beginning next year. In addition, this decision will allow us the opportunity to dedicate more time and resources to growing our owned brands-Rocky, Georgia Boot Durango, and Lehigh® – which carry significantly higher gross margins.
Dickies footwear sales represented approximately 4% of Rocky Brands total sales in 2009.
Philip Williamson, Chief Executive Officer of Williamson-Dickie Manufacturing Company, commented, “Our relationship with Rocky has been very successful and we appreciate its many valuable contributions to the Dickies® brand. However, we now have the internal capabilities to develop and market footwear thanks to our purchase of Kodiak Group. Therefore, we made the strategic decision to bring the Dickies® footwear business in-house to take advantage of our acquired expertise and better leverage our operating and manufacturing platform.
