Pitcher Partners advises on sale of iconic Aussie hat brand Akubra
Almost two and a half centuries of Australian apparel history have been brought together under one banner, with Akubra’s sale to RM Williams owner Tattarang in a deal advised on by Pitcher Partners.
Australians would be forgiven for feeling a pang of nostalgia over recent news in the M&A and restructuring space, with Sara Lee and Sea Folly among the iconic Aussie brands to have recently hit the headlines.
Now, the famed hat-maker Akubra has been united with another supplier of quintessential bush-wear in RM Williams, bought by Andrew and Nicola Forrest’s investment vehicle Tattarang in a deal advised on by Pitcher Partners.
Not exactly latecomers to the party, the accounting and consulting network’s Sydney branch has been advising Akubra’s Keir family-owners for the past three decades of the manufacturer’s nearly 150-year history, with the company first established in Hobart in 1876. Since then, Akubra’s rugged, hand-crafted designs have gained international renown, including as a supplier of slouch hats to the Australian armed forces dating back to the First World War.
“Pitcher Partners is proud to be the advisors on a historic deal that will bring two Australian giants together,” the firm stated. “We have worked alongside three generations of the Keir family as they have built Akubra into one of the most recognisable names in Australian goods, and advising on the sale marks a significant milestone in our relationship. We congratulate the family on their success and celebrate the legacy and legend that is Akubra.”
Taking six weeks and 60 pairs of hands to produce each of its 240,000 annually-made hats, the Akubra range has been manufactured at a purpose-built workshop in the New South Wales mid-north town of Kempsey since 1972, and currently employs around 120 locals. It’s an arrangement that the Forrests not only want to preserve, but hopefully expand to include additional jobs through a fresh investment into production facilities and a new ‘fashion-forward’ focus.
“There’s a fallacy that Australia can’t do great manufacturing. We absolutely can do great manufacturing,” Andrew Forest stated, with the billionaire Fortescue Metals founder adding that from an emotional standpoint the hats were synonymous with his own childhood growing up on a cattle station in the Pilbara. “There’s nothing more proudly Australian than an Akubra. We would like to see it as the premier hat of its type in the world.”
The sale follows Tattarang’s $190 million purchase of RM Williams from L. Catterton in 2020, having since added two new production lines to the 90 year-old footwear and clothing company’s factory in Adelaide and almost 500 extra staff in line with a significant boost in sales. According to outgoing chair Stephen Keir, the turnaround and continued Australian ownership encouraged its own agreement to sell, with Akubra remaining profitable but at its ceiling.
“Ultimately the company needs to grow, but we couldn’t expand the line of production and didn’t have the capital the business needed,” Keir stated, with his great-great-great grandfather having taken over the business in 1918. “We thought long and hard about selling the business after five generations of family ownership, and after we saw how the Forrests have invested in local manufacturing with RM Williams we decided they were the right custodians for Akubra.”
