Name: VF Corp Look to Add More Brands to Its Impressive Portfolio
Uploaded: 2018-04-05
Duration: 5 min 13 s
Description: CEO Steve Rendle says the company is looking to align itself to the quickly changing needs of the modern apparel consumer.

Steve you've been talking to investors and wall street analysts here in New York and telling them that you want to transform the F corp. Why now and what are you doing differently? VF is long storied company. We're 119 years old and we've always been in the consumer business selling some type of apparel. Where we find ourselves today is in a market that's transforming around us, and for us to continue to compete with our powerful portfolio of brands we need to transform how we think, how we act, and ultimately how we work. We know that retailers are struggling, and we know that consumers are buying more stuff online How are you responding to all these changes? Consumers are moving quickly. For us to compete and stay in lockstep with our consumers, we need to change. So first, we're looking at our portfolio. And the portfolio of brands that align around our financial aspirations. But also brands that are able to connect at a very intimate level with the consumer to have a more one to one relationship We're changing how we work inside, we're transforming our end- to- end product creation and demand creation model to be again more Nimble, looking at consumer need and how we drive consumer demand in a much more efficient, quick, more agile way but more relevant to what our consumers are asking for. We know that you can buy for example North Face Jackets and Timberland boots online and also in your specialty stores. How important are physical stores to you success? Physical stores are very important. We know the consumers. Our data tells us consumers love to have a personal interaction. They do like to come into an experiential environment where they can feel Touch, smell, the attributes of a brand and the products new that those brands were selling. We need to marry our physical environment, with our virtual environment. And then there is Amazon, which is interestingly both your customers, but also your competitor. What is your Amazon strategy? I think it's striking the balance, what is it that Amazon Does that our consumers are looking for and what are the things that we can do to differentiate our offer and our other wholesale partner's offer? Amazon is a very frictionless environment. It's about selling items. We are to selling a story, about a lifestyle and what our brands enable you to do, where our brands allow you to go, the communities that you can become part of. That's the experiential aspect of the balance of our distribution. I hear that you've just hire a chief digital officer, this is a brand new position at [ UNKNOWN ]. What are you trying to accomplish? For us, is we look to the future. You know, digital is at the center of how consumers are really consuming content, how they're you know, purchasing products. We need to advance our capabilities. We're already pretty good. By adding a Chief Digital Officer, and having her help us think about our platform, our capabilities, but also the types of people that we should have inside our businesses to advance this thinking, It's a catalyst. It's a catalyst for us to get better, and be in front of our consumers in a more productive way. Let's talk a little bit about mergers and acquisitions. You have a long history of growing through acquisitions. You've been selling off some brands, like Nautica, and you've been buying other companies. What's the next big deal? Well, I can't tell you the next big deal. What I can tell is where we're looking. We're an apparel and footwear company. That's what we're strong at. But we're also a consumer- driven company that can drive really interesting and compelling experiences. So this last year, we announced the acquisition or the intent to acquire Ice Breaker. The Icebreaker brand is located in New Zealand, it's built on the natural merino fiber that's special to their environment. We're already in the merino business today. We have a brand called SmartWool that makes merino socks. IceBreaker is the dominant merino apparel manufacturer. Combined the two, we now have the strongest portfolio of brands to answer the consumer's request for more natural, sustainable products. You've been talking about transforming VF. So what would it take to do a Big transformative deal. For us to do a big transformative deal, we would need to be looking at a sector and a category where we see growth. Where we see new growth opportunities and where our scales and acapabilities would lend themselves to advance that company's growth. At the same time, we'd be looking for what capabilities do they have that could come back in the VF to make us a better company. But it's looking for new growth spaces, new consumers, new categories, new sectors. Would you like to do a big deal? Well I absolutely would. Yeah, we've been very open about that. M & A is our first choice for capital allocation. It's how we transform. It's how VF has transformed. Where we find ourselves today is in the opportunity, again, to transform in this rapidly evolving consumer marketplace. Where is the consumer going? How can we shape our portfolio to be there with them, to solve their problems, and to provide that experience? [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

CEO Steve Rendle says the company is looking to align itself to the quickly changing needs of the modern apparel consumer.