Outland Denim Group has snapped up fellow Australian jeans seller Nobody Denim.
Though it boasts a customer base of more than 60,000, Nobody faced tough times lately, with Australian Financial Review reporting in August that the company had laid off 40 garment workers at its owned manufacturing facility. On Tuesday, the Australian fashion news site Ragtrader reported that Nobody was placed into liquidation a week earlier.
At the time, it owed creditors 3.6 million Australian dollars, or about $2.3 million, Ragtrader said. Per Outland, Nobody made 5.6 million Australian dollars, or roughly $3.6 million, in its 2023 fiscal year. According to news.com.au, Outland bought Nobody’s assets, not the company itself, meaning Outland will not be liable for the brand’s debts.
Outland’s purchase of Nobody, which brings its total number of retail doors to more than 170, preceded the opening of the brand’s third round of equity crowdfunding on Tuesday. Previous rounds raised a combined 2.1 million Australian dollars, or about $1.3 million. Outland positioned the funding round as the beginning of a “new chapter,” with its primary focus on integrating and scaling Nobody, and then a global expansion for both brands.
Outland’s primary revenue comes from denim sales on its e-commerce platforms, Outland and now Nobody, as well as retail partnerships, including with the Australian luxury department store David Jones, it said. It pulls in additional revenue from third-party manufacturing services it provides to brands like Aje and Spell. Finally, it is developing a proprietary textile waste solution, Huskland, and is “on the verge” of establishing its first plant, Outland said. The company described this vertical as an “emerging” revenue stream that it intends to continue investing in.
Outland has faced economic challenges of its own recently. In April, founding CEO James Bartle revealed that the company closed one of its two Cambodian factories in December. The “immense cost” of supporting employees through Covid shutdowns, coupled with weak revenue and hesitant investors left the company only two paths forward, close the whole business or pare back operations, Bartle said. It chose the latter.