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Wilsons: A sale meant to happen
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A SALE MEANT TO HAPPEN
1899: Berman Brothers Fur, Wool and Hides is founded by brothers David, Ephraim and Alexander Berman.
1946: With fur unpopular, the store is renamed Berman Buckskin, with fringed deerskin jackets and Indian motifs marketed to tourists.
1956: G&N Sportswear, now G-III Apparel Group, was founded by Aron Goldfarb.
1972: The Bermans expand into leather specialty shops, including hotels and shopping malls. Within four years there are 19 Berman Buckskin stores in four states.
1979: W.R. Grace & Co. acquires Berman Brothers. Lyle Berman (grandson of David, son of Nathan) becomes president.
1987: Lyle Berman takes the company private in a $99.3 million leveraged buyout.
1988: The 163-store chain is sold to CVS New York Inc. (previously Melville Corp.) for $220 million and is merged with its Wilsons House of Suede, forming Wilsons the Leather Experts Inc.
1989: G-III goes public in 1989 through a merger with Ante Corp., a venture capital firm founded by Berman.
1993: Wilsons acquires Georgetown Leather Design and has 631 stores under its umbrella with sales of $600 million.
1996: Lyle Berman and current G-III Chairman and CEO Morris Goldfarb take Wilsons private for $67.8 million.
1997: Wilsons goes public in a $9.2 million IPO, selling 10 percent of the company.
2001: Wilsons buys privately held Bentley's Luggage Corp., which sells travel products at 106 stores, for an undisclosed sum as part of a plan to reach $1 billion in sales.
2002: The travel stores lose $26.4 million in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, and Wilsons closes 135 outlets.
2004: Wilsons shuts 111 underperforming stores and cuts 950 jobs. In April, Peninsula Investment Partners of Charlottesville, Va., and two affiliates of Quaker Capital Management of Pittsburgh invest $35 million for 17.9 million shares of stock.
2005: In April, Lyle Berman resigns from the board of directors, the last tie to a business begun by his grandfather.
2007: In June, Wilsons gets $45 million from private equity investors.
July 2008: G-III acquires the Wilsons name, website and 116 of its outlet stores for $22.3 million. Wilsons renames itself PreVu Inc.
Sources: Star Tribune archives, Lyle Berman, SEC filings, referenceforbusiness.com
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