Kontoor Brands completed the sale of The H.D. Lee Company, and with it the global Lee brand and its associated business, on November 2, 2026, the company disclosed in a Form 8-K filed on Friday. The buyer was ABG-Storm LLC, an affiliate of Authentic Brands Group, under a stock purchase agreement signed on May 20, 2026, at a headline price of $750.0 million in cash, subject to adjustments for cash, indebtedness and net working capital; after those adjustments Kontoor received approximately $698.2 million in cash.
Kontoor is also eligible for contingent earnout payments of up to $250.0 million in aggregate, based on the Lee business’s performance over a five-year earnout period, the filing says. The company’s senior notes indenture requires net proceeds from a significant asset disposition to be applied to reduce indebtedness or, at Kontoor’s option, reinvested in the business within 540 days, and the filing says a portion of the net cash proceeds has already been applied since the closing.