Australian Fusion Retail Brands up for sale

Australian Fusion Retail Brands, former Colorado Group,

is up for sale as its private equity owners want to deinvest in the brand. The fashion label will be portrayed as a pure-play footwear retailer after it sold its clothing brand JAG for an undisclosed sum, as reported by Australian media.

''I think the main reason is we are trying to find the right partners for our brands and the balance of our brands are all very footwear centric, whereas the JAG brand has less synergies,'' Fusion Retail Brands chief executive Don Grover said.

Grover explained to ‘BusinessDay’ that the JAG brand did not fit in the company's fashion portfolio and it made sense to divest it as the group was also looking for a buyer for the whole business.

JAG will be sold to the Apparel Group, owner of other established fashion brands in the region such as Sportscraft, Saba and Willow.

Colorado Group went into administration in 2011 to be later rescued and restructured by private equity tandem formed of Canyon and Anchorage Capital. Therefore, the deal with the Apparel Group is subject to completion of due diligence.

Fusion Retail Brands still owns Diana Ferrari, Williams, Mathers and Colorado, and its private equity owners are taking bids for buyers of the retail business, reported the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’.