Wolverine World Wide, Inc. or Wolverine Worldwide, is a publicly traded American footwear manufacturer based in
Rockford, Michigan
Rockford is a city in Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 5,719 at the 2010 census.
Located along the Rogue River, the city is part of the Grand Rapids metropolitan area and is about north of the city of Grand Rapi ...
. The shoemaker is known for its
eponymous
An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''.
Usage of the word
The term ''epon ...
brand, Wolverine Boots and Shoes, as well as other brands, such as
Hush Puppies
Hush Puppies is an American brand of casual footwear. A division of Wolverine World Wide, Hush Puppies is headquartered in Rockford, Michigan. Wolverine also licenses the Hush Puppies name for apparel, toys and accessories.
Hush Puppies uses a ...
and
Merrell. The company also manufactures licensed footwear for other firms, such as
Caterpillar and
Harley-Davidson
Harley-Davidson, Inc. (H-D, or simply Harley) is an American motorcycle manufacturer headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1903, it is one of two major American motorcycle manufacturers to survive the Great Depressi ...
. In 2012, Wolverine World Wide added
Saucony
Saucony is an American brand of athletic footwear and apparel. Founded in 1898, the company is owned by Wolverine World Wide. Products commercialised by Saucony include footwear and clothing ranges, such as athletic shoes, jackets, hoodies, t-s ...
,
Keds
Keds is an American brand of canvas shoes with rubber soles. Founded in 1916, the company is owned by Wolverine World Wide. The original shoe design, the Champion, was the first mass-marketed canvas-top "sneaker".
History
Early history
In 19 ...
,
Stride Rite
Stride Rite, formerly the Stride Rite Corporation and stylized in all lowercase, is an American children's footwear company. The company markets Stride Rite products globally through brand licensee Vida Shoes International.
History Founding an ...
and
Sperry Top-Sider
Sperry or Sperry Top-Sider is an American brand of boat shoe designed in 1935 by Paul A. Sperry. Sperrys, or Top-Siders, were the first boat shoes introduced into the boating and footwear markets. Today the Sperry brand is owned by Wolverine Wor ...
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
Payless (formerly known as Payless ShoeSource Inc.) is an international discount footwear chain. Established in 1956 by cousins Louis and Shaol Pozez, Payless was a privately held company owned by Blum Capital, and Golden Gate Capital. In 1961, i ...
and Collective Licensing International to
private equity firm
A private equity firm is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of startup or operating companies through a variety of loosely affiliated investment strategies including lev ...
s
Blum Capital Partners and
Golden Gate Capital
Golden Gate Capital is an American private equity firm based in San Francisco. The firm makes investments in a number of select industries, including technology, financial services, retail and industrial, through leveraged buyout transactions, a ...
.
History
Founding and early years (1883 to 1959)
Fredrick Hirth and G. A. Krause founded the company in 1883.
Hirth and Krause bought a small leather shop in
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Grand Rapids is a city and county seat of Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 198,917 which ranks it as the second most-populated city in the state after Detroit. Grand Rapids is the ...
, 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.
Name change and expansion (1960 to 1989)
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
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed co ...
.
Hush Puppies
Hush Puppies is an American brand of casual footwear. A division of Wolverine World Wide, Hush Puppies is headquartered in Rockford, Michigan. Wolverine also licenses the Hush Puppies name for apparel, toys and accessories.
Hush Puppies uses a ...
, a casual footwear brand founded by the company in 1958, quickly rose to popularity in the 1960s.
Growth and Acquisitions (1990 to 2009)
In 1994, Wolverine World Wide introduced Cat Footwear, a licensed brand of shoes using the
Caterpillar Inc. name.
In 1995, the Council of Fashion Designers of America voted Hush Puppies as Fashion Accessory of the Year.
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
Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and ...
. The company stopped production of Patagonia footwear in 2014.
Present day
Wolverine World Wide nearly doubled in size after its 2012 acquisition of the Performance Lifestyle Group of
Collective Brands, which added
Saucony
Saucony is an American brand of athletic footwear and apparel. Founded in 1898, the company is owned by Wolverine World Wide. Products commercialised by Saucony include footwear and clothing ranges, such as athletic shoes, jackets, hoodies, t-s ...
,
Keds
Keds is an American brand of canvas shoes with rubber soles. Founded in 1916, the company is owned by Wolverine World Wide. The original shoe design, the Champion, was the first mass-marketed canvas-top "sneaker".
History
Early history
In 19 ...
,
Stride Rite
Stride Rite, formerly the Stride Rite Corporation and stylized in all lowercase, is an American children's footwear company. The company markets Stride Rite products globally through brand licensee Vida Shoes International.
History Founding an ...
and
Sperry Top-Sider
Sperry or Sperry Top-Sider is an American brand of boat shoe designed in 1935 by Paul A. Sperry. Sperrys, or Top-Siders, were the first boat shoes introduced into the boating and footwear markets. Today the Sperry brand is owned by Wolverine Wor ...
brands to its portfolio. In 2017 the company sold its
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secur ...
footwear business along with a factory in
Big Rapids, Michigan to
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to t ...
-based footwear manufacturer Original Footwear. In the same year Wolverine World Wide converted Stride Rite to a
licensed brand operated by
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
-based Vida Shoes International.
The company is based out of corporate offices in
Rockford, Michigan
Rockford is a city in Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 5,719 at the 2010 census.
Located along the Rogue River, the city is part of the Grand Rapids metropolitan area and is about north of the city of Grand Rapi ...
and
Waltham, Massachusetts
Waltham ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, and was an early center for the labor movement as well as a major contributor to the American Industrial Revolution. The original home of the Boston Manufacturing Company, ...
. Wolverine World Wide also operates three distribution centers in the United States, one in Canada and one in the Netherlands. As of December 29, 2018, Wolverine World Wide operated 80 retail stores in the U.S. and Canada and 42 consumer-direct eCommerce sites.
According to the company's 2018 annual report, "substantially all of the units sourced by the Company are procured from numerous third-party manufacturers in the Asia Pacific region. The Company maintains offices in the Asia Pacific region to develop and facilitate sourcing strategies."
Wolverine World Wide operated various
PFAS
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are synthetic organofluorine chemical compounds that have multiple fluorine atoms attached to an alkyl chain. An early definition, from 2011, required that they contain at least one perfluoroalkyl ...
dumpsites throughout Belmont and Rockford that contaminated the drinking water of residents. These sites contaminated the water for hundreds of residents. The chemicals involved have been linked to various negative health effects, including
several cancers. In February 2020 Wolverine settled Grand Rapids federal court action by agreeing to pay $69.5 million to provide town-supplied drinking water to affected residents.
In 2019, Wolverine World Wide reorganized into two operating segments:
* Wolverine Michigan Group whose brands include Bates,
Cat
The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...
Footwear,
Chaco,
Harley-Davidson
Harley-Davidson, Inc. (H-D, or simply Harley) is an American motorcycle manufacturer headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1903, it is one of two major American motorcycle manufacturers to survive the Great Depressi ...
Footwear,
Hush Puppies
Hush Puppies is an American brand of casual footwear. A division of Wolverine World Wide, Hush Puppies is headquartered in Rockford, Michigan. Wolverine also licenses the Hush Puppies name for apparel, toys and accessories.
Hush Puppies uses a ...
, HyTest,
Merrell and Wolverine
* Wolverine Boston Group whose brands include
Keds
Keds is an American brand of canvas shoes with rubber soles. Founded in 1916, the company is owned by Wolverine World Wide. The original shoe design, the Champion, was the first mass-marketed canvas-top "sneaker".
History
Early history
In 19 ...
,
Saucony
Saucony is an American brand of athletic footwear and apparel. Founded in 1898, the company is owned by Wolverine World Wide. Products commercialised by Saucony include footwear and clothing ranges, such as athletic shoes, jackets, hoodies, t-s ...
,
Sperry Top-Sider
Sperry or Sperry Top-Sider is an American brand of boat shoe designed in 1935 by Paul A. Sperry. Sperrys, or Top-Siders, were the first boat shoes introduced into the boating and footwear markets. Today the Sperry brand is owned by Wolverine Wor ...
, the
Stride Rite
Stride Rite, formerly the Stride Rite Corporation and stylized in all lowercase, is an American children's footwear company. The company markets Stride Rite products globally through brand licensee Vida Shoes International.
History Founding an ...
licensed business and the kids footwear businesses of Cat, Hush Puppies, Keds, Merrell, Saucony and Sperry
The company acquired British athleisure retailer
Sweaty Betty
Sweaty Betty is a British retailer specialising in women's activewear, founded by Tamara and Simon Hill-Norton. It has over 50 boutiques in the United Kingdom, six boutiques in the United States and concessions in department stores Harrods and ...
in 2021.
References
External links
*
{{authority control
*
Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange
Manufacturing companies based in Michigan
Companies based in Kent County, Michigan
1883 establishments in Michigan
Clothing companies established in 1883
Shoe companies of the United States