Gap Group Buys American High-End Children'S Clothing Brand Janie And Jack

According to official news of Gap group, Janie andJack (Jeanne and Jack), the high-end children's clothing brand, has been purchased from Gymboree Group (golden baby group) recently, and the purchase price is $35 million.

Janie andJack, founded in 1976, now has more than 100 retail outlets and an official mall in the United States, selling baby and children's clothing. After the completion of the acquisition, the brand will still be based on the US San Francisco brand and operate independently all stores. In addition, Gap group also purchased all Janieand Jack inventory at cost and extra cost and expense.

The last acquisition of Gap group also took place in 2016, when the takeover target was the wedding brand WeddingWay, which was later suspended in June 2018. At present, Gap group includes Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, Athleta, HillCity, and many brand retailers Intermix. Among them, some brands contain children's clothing products, but Janie and Jack is the only independent children's clothing brand.

And this brand portfolio will change dramatically in 2020. Gap group announced a major strategy in February 28th, saying that because OldNavy's business model and customers are more and more different from the professional brand in the group, Gap group will be split into two listed companies in 2020, OldNavy will be stripped, and the remaining brands will form another new company.

The two companies will operate independently, with different financial conditions, customized strategies matching their operational needs, and unique capital allocation strategies.

Although Gap group's head brand Gap performance has continued to decline, but the brand's children's clothing products, and other brands of children's clothing products group has a better performance.

Take the Chinese market as an example, since the Gap brand entered China in 2010, it has brought children's wear lines. After entering Tmall in 2014, Gap's children's wear products have always been the forefront of sales of this category. Due to outstanding performance, the brand is even classified as children's clothing category. In 2017, the Gap brand even opened its first independent children's clothing store in Yintai, West Lake, Hangzhou.

Subject to the positioning of Gap group's brand, the price of children's wear products has been between tens and hundreds of dollars. And the acquisition of Janie andJack will open up a higher priced baby clothing market for the group. Therefore, Gap group president and CEO ArtPeck regard the acquisition as an effective complement to the existing brand, and believe that the brand has a clear path of development.