California Apparel News

Centric Brands, the new name of the company that now owns the Hudson, Joe’s Jeans, Robert Graham and other labels, has hired a new chief financial officer and offered its new chief executive a hefty financial incentive package to remain with the company over the next three years.

Centric Brands, formerly known as the Los Angeles–based Differential Brands, has hired Anurup Pruthi as the company’s new chief financial officer. Most recently, Pruthi was the chief financial officer at the childrenswear retailer The Children’s Place, which has more than 1,000 stores around the world.

Before working at The Children’s Place, Pruthi was the chief financial officer of the retail subsidiary of Reliance Industries, based in India, and the chief executive of the Future Group business consulting and services company.

He has had senior executive financial and operational positions with Burberry, Mexx Europe Holding and Liz Claiborne Inc.

“We are thrilled to have a seasoned retail executive like Anurup join our team as we begin to build and grow Centric Brands. With more than 25 years of experience spanning numerous financial and operational roles at large retail and consumer-branded companies across the globe, Anurup brings extensive knowledge and expertise to our executive team,” said Centric Brands Chief Executive Jason Rabin.

Rabin, who was named chief executive of the new Centric Brands company in October, was offered a generous financial incentive package to accept the job, the company announced in a press release.

Rabin is being offered 4.1 million restricted-stock units with respect to the company’s stock, $.10 par value and 500,000 performance stock units with respect to the common stock.

The grants were not made under the company’s 2016 stock-incentive compensation plan but are subject to the same terms and conditions as the 2016 plan.

Centric Brands’ stock, which is listed on the Nasdaq, was most recently being traded for $5.80 a share.

Thirty percent of the restricted-stock units will vest on Dec. 31, 2019, another 30 percent will vest on Dec. 21, 2020, and the remaining 40 percent will vest on Dec. 31, 2021, subject to Rabin’s continued employment with the company, provided his employment is not terminated by the company.

If Rabin is terminated without cause or for good reason, the settlement will take place 30 days after the termination.

For the performance stock units, each 33.33 percent will vest on Dec. 31 in 2019, 2020, and 2021. In the case of termination, any PSUs not issued will become vested on the date his employment ends.

Centric Brands is now headquartered in New York with offices in Los Angeles, Montreal and Greensboro, N.C.

The company was formed in October after Differential Brands acquired for $1.2 billion a significant part of the Global Brands Group’s licensing business in North America. Rabin was the former president of the Global Brands Group North America.

The brands that made up Global Brands’ North American licenses included Calvin Klein, Under Armour, Tommy Hilfiger, BCBG, Joe’s Jeans, Buffalo David Bitton, Frye, Michael Kors, Kate Spade, All Saints, Cole Haan, Kenneth Cole and entertainment properties including Disney, Marvel and Nickelodeon.

Differential Brands, which used to own Joe’s Jeans before it sold the label, had a handful of labels that included SWIMS, Robert Graham and Hudson.