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Lululemon founder Chip Wilson, who started the company in 1998, left a day-to-day management role in January 2012. He said he plans to spend more time on Kit & Ace, a clothing company founded by his wife and son in 2014.
(The Associated Press)
Lululemon Athletica Inc. founder Chip Wilson, who had feuded with the company's management over strategy, is stepping down as a board member, saying the yogawear retailer is back on track.
Wilson, who has pushed for changes at the company since he returned from a sabbatical in Australia in 2013, said in a statement Monday that Lululemon has returned to its "core values." The progress is reflected in the company's share price, Wilson said. The stock is up about 70 percent in the past six months.
In August, Lululemon settled its dispute with Wilson, who had said he was unhappy with the direction the retailer had taken after he stepped down as chairman. As part of the deal, Wilson agreed not to pursue a buyout of the company for at least a year and to sell half of his stake to private-equity firm Advent International Corp. for about $845 million.
"I have achieved the goals I set when I came back," he said in Monday's statement. "After careful thought, I believe that now is the right time to step away from the board."
Lululemon, based in Vancouver, fell 1.1 percent to $65.52 at the close in New York.
Wilson, who founded Lululemon in 1998, left a day-to-day management role in January 2012. He said he plans to spend more time on Kit & Ace, a clothing company founded by his wife and son in 2014.
Wilson's Skills
His earlier decision to resign his chairmanship followed an interview on Bloomberg Television in which Wilson said Lululemon's pants "don't work for some women's bodies." He apologized a week later.
Wilson's "skill-set works really well in a start-up environment and doesn't translate as well to a more mature company with different needs," Bridget Weishaar, an analyst at Morningstar Inc. in Chicago, said in an interview. "The new management team that came in and the new board members are in a much better position to keep the good things about the company but also deal with other things that weren't Wilson's core competencies."
Advent had invested in Lululemon in 2005 and worked with Wilson and five of the current directors to help the company expand from a regional retailer to a worldwide brand. Advent exited its original investment in June 2009.
To contact the reporter on this story: Lindsey Rupp in New York at lrupp2@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net Kevin Orland, Niamh Ring