Liberated Layoffs and the Perils of Bigger is Better

In covering the business of fashion, growing revenue and ballooning portfolios always make for buzzy headlines. 

But it’s a bigger is better mentality for an industry where brands are often better left independent, that offers the tension for a long-standing battle between the creatives and finance.

The industry is less than a month into 2025 and already it’s been rocked by devastating wildfires that have displaced thousands, layoffs of nearly 400 at Costa Mesa licensing company Liberated Brands and the peculiar union of an ailing department store chain and multi-brand operator to form Texas-based Catalyst Brands. 

Let’s take that last one first.

Catalyst is the biproduct of JCPenney’s merger with SPARC, which is owned by brand management firm Authentic Brands Group, fast-fashion company Shein and mall owners Simon Property Group and Brookfield Corp. Who owns what and their additional holdings is as dizzying as looking at a capital stack graphic.

By the numbers, Catalyst seems positioned for success: revenue in excess of $9 billion, nearly 2,000 stores, 60,000 employees and $1 billion in liquidity derived from Aeropostale, Brooks Brothers, Eddie Bauer, Lucky Brand, Nautica and JCPenney. 

Marc Rosen, the former JCPenney chief named Catalyst CEO, said the new entity pools “the rich heritage of six unique brands with modern energy.”

The reality is many of these labels have reorganized under bankruptcy or been passed from one buyer to the next over the years. 

The one thing going for Catalyst is scale with the amalgamation of brands and mall operators, each in need of new distribution or brands to fill store shelves. 

It’s the art of the cross-sell played out on a much larger stage. 

Shuffling Fatalities

The same day Catalyst was revealed, 363 layoffs went into effect at Liberated Brands. 

The Costa Mesa company is the owner of Captain Fin and up until around December had been the licensee for brands such as Volcom, RVCA, Roxy, Quiksilver and several other action sports labels.  

Liberated laid off its workforce and shuttered its Costa Mesa headquarters after Authentic Brands Group made the decision to disburse its licensing deals to other businesses. 

“The company is actively transitioning its brand licenses to new license holders,” Liberated told the Orange County Register last week of the shift. 

Authentic awarded several licensing deals to Liberated in September 2023. They ballooned the latter’s business overnight to include the distribution of Billabong, RVCA and Honolua in the U.S. and Canada. Liberated also received the license to operate the physical stores and e-commerce of Quiksilver, Billabong, Roxy, RVCA, Honolua and Boardriders in the U.S. and Canada. 

Authentic characterized the deals as “long-term agreements.” They must have changed their minds. 

Lost in Translation

Any shift in management or ownership demands from the workforce a period of transition. The spirit behind the brands often gets lost in the shuffle, diluted with each change of hands. It’s often what brand management firms don’t get. 

These are the companies that scoop up the intellectual property of businesses oftentimes struggling. Their rocky businesses are often what makes them so cheap to acquire. They squeeze out whatever dollars they can with what’s left of the brand equity, oftentimes using sheer scale to help. Longevity or “long-term agreements” are never really a consideration. 

Clearly, that was the case with the Boardriders group. It’s been chopped up and spit out across multiple owners and licensees pre- and post-Authentic Brands’ $1.3 billion purchase of the action sports group in 2023. 

Apparel’s rife with those kinds of stories. 

Brand licensing company Global Icons did the same with iconic Los Angeles retailer Fred Segal. It was the first ever brand to be added to its business in 2019. Global Icons had no experience running a retailer. Store growth and placing the Fred Segal name on clothing and accessories was the strategy. It buckled under the challenges of the pandemic and Fred Segal closed its physical stores and e-commerce last year. 

Global Icons CEO Jeff Lotman partially blamed the pandemic for the closure before telling the Los Angeles Times, “I knew nothing about retail.” 

The story – and fate of the brands – never seems to change for companies who approach brand ownership as a plug-and-play operation. It’s what’s allowed the creation of a behemoth called Catalyst, the shuffling once again of the Boardriders brands as hundreds of jobs are lost or the reason an iconic L.A. retailer could quietly be allowed to fold.