Beachbody is a big American group that develops videos and sells DVDs for in-home and gym-based fitness programs under different brands like Insanity, P90X and 21 Day Fix. Many of them feature celebrities. It also sells weight-loss nutrition products under the Shakeology brand name. It makes an annual turnover of around €1.5 billion and works with about 37,000 instructors around the world.
The company, which is based in Santa Monica, California, has appointed Global Brand Partners as its global licensee for its first lines of shoes and apparel under the Beachbody name. The project is widely expected to fly high at the international level because of the current fitness trend and because one of the partners in the licensee is Killick Datta, a well-known personality in the sports sector who has worked for big players like Nike, LA Gear, Brooks, Skechers and Wolverine Worlwide. He made big waves in the licensing business as the footwear licensee of Diesel, Nautica and other brands.
The other shareholder in Global Brand Partners, founded in Singapore in March, is Peter Koral, founder and former chief executive of 7 For All Mankind, a high-end brand of denim jeans that he sold to VF Corporation for about $700 million. With his experience, the Beachbody apparel line may be extended to leggings and other types of streetwear, following the example of Italy's Freddy, which has added a line of body-conscious men's pants to its successful line of tight women's pants.
Datta, who is now based in Singapore, left on Dec. 31 the management of a new Chinese brand of fancy clogs, CCILU, to concentrate on this new project, which he wants to conduct on an international scale, coinciding with Beachbody's expansion outside the U.S. The firm has just landed in Canada and the U.K., marketing its products under the Insanity brand name.
Using his numerous connections around the world, Datta plans to have 21 distributors signed up by Aug. 1 in 68 countries including the U.S., Germany and Japan. Many of them have represented his brands in the past. He wants to present the new line of Beachbody fitness clothing and footwear at the Ispo Munich and Fibo trade shows in Germany early next year.
