Latham & Watkins is acting for Skechers USA on its $9.4bn sale to private equity firm 3G Capital, repped by Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison.
Kirkland & Ellis is serving as financing legal adviser to 3G Capital on the deal, which marks the footwear industry’s largest buyout to date and brings an end to Skechers’ 26 years on the public markets as it wrestles with the impact of US tariffs.
Sullivan & Cromwell is representing Greenhill as exclusive financial adviser to Skechers.
Latham’s corporate deal team is led by partners Steven Stokdyk, Josh Dubofsky and Andrew Clark while Paul Weiss’s team is headed by partners Laura Turano, Dotun Obadina and Scott Barshay, chair of the firm’s corporate department.
In 2021 Turano and Barshay were part of a Paul Weiss team that acted for 3G Capital on its $7.1bn acquisition of a stake in Dutch architectural products-maker Hunter Douglas; Barshay also acted for the firm and HJ Heinz in the $60bn Kraft-Heinz merger back in 2015 while a partner at Cravath Swaine & Moore.
The Kirkland team included debt finance partners Scott Rolnik and Jay Ptashek and investment funds partners Andrew Wright and Nadia Murad.
Skechers shares jumped 25% to $61.86 on the news on Monday (5 May), Reuters reported, regaining ground after dropping almost 30% this year as the company withdrew its annual results forecast last month and warned of the consequences from President Donald Trump’s 145% import tariff on Chinese goods.
Skechers manufactures all the shoes it sells in the US abroad, with around 40% from China, according to CNN. The company was among a host of businesses, including Nike and Adidas America, that signed a letter to Trump last week warning him that the tariffs posed an “existential threat” to the US footwear industry.
3G Capital has offered $63 per Skechers share in cash, a 28% premium to the stock’s Friday close, according to Reuters. The deal includes the option for Skechers shareholders to instead receive $57 in cash per share and one unlisted equity unit in a newly-formed, privately held company that, following the deal’s close, will be Skechers’ parent company.
The Sullivan team representing Greenhill includes global head of the firm’s M&A group, Melissa Sawyer, and partner Lee Parnes.
The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2025 and will be financed by cash provided by 3G Capital and debt financing committed by JP Morgan Chase & Co.
Skechers said that following the deal’s close it would continue to be led by chief executive officer Robert Greenberg and president Michael Greenberg, a father-son duo who founded the company in 1992 in Manhattan Beach, California. Chief operating officer David Weinberg will also retain his role.
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