Fast Five - Kathmandu

Kathmandu made big news this week with the announcement it acquired Rip Curl for roughly USD $250M. In 2018 Kathmandu picked up outdoor footwear brand Oboz for approximately USD $75M. Kathmandu is a regular on Malakye.com in search of talent to join the company in the U.S. as well as at headquarters in Christchurch, New Zealand. Here’s our Fast Five on Kathmandu.

1. Founded in 1987, here are some notable milestones:

• Launched as a specialist outdoor retailer making it’s own products and stocking other brands. During the 1990s the company became very focused on design with cornerstone philosophy of: original, sustainable, engineered, adaptive.
• By 2002, Kathmandu successfully became a vertically integrated retailer.
• In 2006, Kathmandu was acquired by a consortium of private equity funds.
• In 2008, the company opened online and mail order operations.
• In 2009, Kathmandu became a publicly traded company
  

2. In 2018, Kathmandu acquired outdoor footwear brand Oboz, which was founded and is headquartered in Bozeman, Montana.

3. Kathmandu’s acquisition of Rip Curl will aide the company in breaking $1 Billion in annual sales for the first time.

4. The company’s total headcount is over 2,000 with close to 200 at headquarters in Chirstchurch, New Zealand and the board of directors has a wide range of executives with seriously impressive backgrounds.

5. With the majority of it’s retail footprint in Australasia (store count: 118 in Australia, 48 in New Zealand, 1 in United Kingdom) and the acquisition of a powerful global brand in Rip Curl, Kathmandu has a lot of room to grow.

You can follow Kathmandu on Malakye following this link.

And we’ll leave you with some inspiring videos about the company: