Shaq’s business empire continues to grow and thrive as we look ahead to 2022. Regular readers of the ShaqFu Radio blog know our man’s sports and business exploits. Today it’s an update on one of O’Neals biggest (so far!) investments: Authentic Brands Group.
In case you didn’t know, Shaquille O’Neal is officially the second-largest individual shareholder in Authentic Brands Group. ABG is a “group” of companies, with names you definitely know. Over the years, ABG has invested in and bought up a nice portfolio.
Names you know? Absolutely. How about Forever 21, Barneys New York, JCPenney and most recently, Reebok. Led by CEO Jamie Salter and president and CMO Nick Woodhouse, ABG looks to take over struggling retail-based companies and turn them around, making them profitable again.
And they’ve been doing well! Recently, ABG was awarded Company of the Year at the annual FN Achievement Awards in New York on Tuesday. For those that don’t know (we didn’t, until we Googled it), FN is Footwear News, a retail trade group that specializes in – you guessed it! – footwear.
As for our man Shaq, he’s owned shares in ABG since 2015, when the company bought the rights to his own personal name brand. Since then, O’Neal has continued to increase his investment in ABG, eventually becoming the second-largest individual shareholder.
In a recent interview with Footwear News, CEO Jamie Salter talked about the day Shaq decided to up his game (or should we say investment) in the company. It happened the day he was signing over some of his personal brands to ABG.
Salter: “[O’Neal] says, ‘You know all that money you’re going to give me? I’d like to invest it in ABG.’ And I said, ‘Hold on, I don’t understand. You need to explain that to me.’ He says, ‘I’m doing a deal with you to sell you 50% of everything I have going on for the rest of my life. Do you think I trust you?’ And I said, ‘I hope so.’ He says, ‘Why wouldn’t I be partners with you. We’re going to build this company together.’ And that’s how he became the second-largest shareholder of ABG.”
Salter described the relationship between the two as a “marriage,” where both partners took bets on one another. Six years later, these bets appear to have paid off.
“I wanted to partner with a company that could perhaps have my name go on forever,” O’Neal told FN. “I met with a lot of companies, but when I met with Jamie and his family, I knew that this was the right place to be.”
Of course one of the biggest deals Shaq has had a hand in was ABG’s acquisition of Reebok, the company that originally brought out Shaq-branded athletic shoes.
Shaq: “Being that I’m partners with [Jamie] — the brand master and reviver, the guy who works magic — I told him, ‘I think you should get Reebok. He never said no. And then one day I wasn’t even thinking about it and he said, ‘I got a big surprise for you. I’m going to send you something. I want you to sign it. Don’t look at it, just sign it.’ So I signed it. He said, ‘Congratulations, my friend, we own Reebok.’ And it was one of the best days in my life.”
How cool is that? What a great business partnership. Can’t wait to see what Shaq and friends at ABG cook up next. As always… Stay tuned.