Authentic Brands Group expects IPO in next 12 months as new CEO steps in, founder tells CNBC

Authentic Brands Group expects IPO in next 12 months as new CEO steps in, founder tells CNBC

• Authentic Brands Group, the management firm behind more than 50 retail brands, has tapped Matt Maddox, a public company veteran and former Wynn Resorts executive, as its next CEO.
• As part of the transition, founder Jamie Salter will become executive chairman.
• In an exclusive interview, Salter told CNBC he expects to take the company public in the next 12 months.

watch nowThe founder of Authentic Brands Group, the management firm behind dozens of retail names including Reebok, Champion and Brooks Brothers, said he expects to take the company public in the next 12 months as he announced a former Wynn Resorts CEO will be its next chief executive.

In an exclusive interview with CNBC's Sara Eisen, Jamie Salter said Authentic's president Matt Maddox, who joined the firm as president in January 2025 after a 20-year career at Wynn, will take over as CEO so Salter can transition to executive chairman.

When asked if this means the company is headed for an IPO, Salter said he expects the company to go public "sometime in the next 12 months."

"There's no doubt about it that Matt is definitely a great Wall Street CEO," said Salter. "We've almost gone public twice, we've filed twice and both times we were taken out by other private equity firms at much higher prices. I think this time, the company has grown so big that I think this time we'll probably end up going public sometime in the next 12 months."

Salter said the transition is necessary because he's trying to grow Authentic into a $100 billion company over the next five years, and said he needs to spend "100% of my time" focused on the mergers and acquisitions that have long formed the lifeblood of his business.

In his new role, Salter will remain "deeply engaged in the business" but will focus on long-term strategy, Authentic said in a news release. Maddox will lead day-to-day operations with a mandate to scale the business, drive organic growth and create value for the firm's "shareholders and partners."

In a release, Maddox added "the opportunity ahead is significant, and we are just getting started."

Authentic generates about $38 billion in system-wide retail sales and has become a major force in the retail industry, known for buying the intellectual property behind popular brands that are distressed or bankrupt and licensing that IP for lucrative royalties.

It has more than 50 brands in its portfolio, including Sports Illustrated, Guess and Juicy Couture, and has partnered with major figures like Shaquille O'Neal, David Beckham and Kevin Hart.

Authentic was almost entirely focused on apparel retailers for years, but these days, Salter said he is looking more toward entertainment acquisitions, which are currently the "driving force" of the business.

"Entertainment today is roughly 20% of our business, 80% beauty and lifestyle, but I believe that over a period of time entertainment will become much stronger, going from 20% to 50%," said Salter. "The reason why I want to focus so much on the entertainment business is because it's clear as day that content drives commerce."

Authentic has been signaling it's ready for a public offering for years, most recently in April during the Reuters Momentum AI event where Salter said the company will attempt another IPO "soon." At the time, Salter said the company previously filed to go public twice but "got bought out for way more than we were going public for" and decided to stay private for the time.

He added that once the company was ready to file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, he planned to be in a leadership position other than CEO.

That moment appears to have arrived with Maddox's appointment as CEO and Salter's transition to executive chairman.

Salter, who has spent decades in the consumer and retail space, is an accomplished investor and dealmaker, but he is less experienced than Maddox when it comes to the chops necessary to run a public company. During his time at Wynn, a near $10 billion market cap company traded on the Nasdaq, Maddox spent almost 15 years in the C-Suite as CFO, president and CEO, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Often when companies are nearing an IPO, they will choose leaders who have deep experience running public companies, especially when those firms are led by founders.

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