Америкалық аяқ киім өндірушісі – Wolverine World Wide тарихы

American footwear manufacturer

Wolverine World Wide, Inc. or Wolverine Worldwide, is a publicly traded American footwear manufacturer based in Rockford, Michigan. The shoemaker is known for its eponymous brand, Wolverine Boots and Shoes, as well as other brands, such as Hush Puppies, Chaco, and Merrell. The company also manufactures licensed footwear for other firms, such as Caterpillar and Harley Davidson. In 2012, Wolverine World Wide added Saucony, Keds, Stride Rite and Sperry Top Sider to its list of brands, after acquiring the Performance Lifestyle Group of Collective Brands in a $1.23 billion transaction that also involved the sale of Payless ShoeSource and Collective Licensing International to private equity firms Blum Capital Partners and Golden Gate Capital.

Fredrick Hirth and G. A. Krause founded the company in 1883. Hirth and Krause bought a small leather shop in Grand Rapids, Michigan, starting with a capital investment of $2,900. In 1901, they built a plant in Rockford Michigan, just north of Grand Rapids. They purchased and expanded the Rogue River Electric Light and Power Company to power their new plant and the city of Rockford. In 1903, operations began and in 1908, a tannery followed. The company thus processed its own raw materials and manufactured its own shoes sold through the Hirth Krause Company. In 1921 the company changed its name to Wolverine Shoe and Tanning Corporation. During the period 1916 1923 its earnings increased 700%. In 1941, during World War II, the Wolverine Shoe and Tanning Company began to work for the U. S. Navy, developing pigskin gloves and inventing what later became known as pigskin suede.

In 1964, the company changed its name to Wolverine World Wide, Inc. and in 1965 became a publicly traded company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Hush Puppies, a casual footwear brand founded by the company in 1958, quickly rose to popularity in the 1960s. In 1997, the company continued expanding by purchasing the Merrell brand. In 1998, Wolverine World Wide acquired the global license for footwear from the Harley Davidson Motor Company. Wolverine World Wide acquisitions in the 2000s included the 2003 purchase of Sebago and 2009 purchases of Chaco and the UK based brand Cushe. The company discontinued the Cushe brand in 2015 and sold Sebago to Italian publicly traded company BasicNet in 2017. In 2006, Wolverine World Wide entered into a global footwear licensing deal with Patagonia. The company stopped production of Patagonia footwear in 2014.