Joe Foster, who founded Reebok along with his late brother Jeff in 1958, received this year’s Life Achievement Award from the British Drapers magazine, coinciding with the sale of the brand to the Authentic Brands Group. Foster stepped back in 1989, and the move made the front page of the first issue of Sporting Goods Intelligence Europe in December of that year. The Foster family had been in the shoe business since 1895, making running and cricket shoes. To relaunch the business, Joe Foster set up a factory in Bolton to launch the Reebok brand of sports shoes, while his brother set up a sports store in Bolton. The brand got a big shot in the arm after Paul Fireman licensed it for the U.S. in 1979, helping it to grow to the N° 1 position for a while, ahead of Nike and Adidas, through its expansion from running into women’s aerobics and other sports including tennis. Two years later, Stephen Rubin, whose family had been manufacturing and importing shoes in the U.K., invested $77,500 to get a 55 percent stake in Fireman’s company, Reebok International. Through his Pentland Group, Rubin and Fireman bought Reebok’s brand rights from Foster in 1984 for $700,000, and floated the company on the stock exchange. Thanks in part to Rubin’s sourcing experience and Fireman’s marketing skills, the business continued to flourish, but Rubin and Fireman parted ways gradually from 1991. Adidas bought Reebok in 2005 for $3.8 billion.

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