VF Corp. is exploring options for divestments in its occupational workwear segment. The nine brands under review are Red Kap, VF Solutions, Bulwark, Workrite, Walls, Terra, Kodiak, Work Authority and Horace Small. Dickies and Timberland Pro are excluded. For VF’s chairman, president and chief executive, Steve Rendle, “divesting these brands would leave VF with a simplified portfolio of higher-growth, consumer-focused brands” – such as Vans, The North Face and Timberland – while providing “financial flexibility” for other initiatives. The divestments would shift VF further toward retail and away from B2B, the main distribution channel for the nine brands, which last year accounted for $865 million of VF’s total of $11.8 billion in revenue and for about half of the workwear segment’s revenue. Barclays is serving as financial adviser and Davis Polk as legal counsel for the review.

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