Drake is about to join Shaquille O’Neal and Kevin Hart as part of the Authentic Brands Group family.
On Thursday, the global brand and entertainment platform said that it acquired a 51 percent stake in the intellectual property of October’s Very Own, or OVO, the lifestyle brand cofounded by Drake. The rapper will retain 44 percent ownership, while Vince Holding Corp. will own 5 percent.
As part of the transaction, Vince Holding will become OVO’s core apparel and retail licensee, overseeing design, product development and merchandising globally for the brand, and acquiring the operating business for OVO’s retail stores.
OVO was founded by the Canadian artist Aubrey “Drake” Graham, with entrepreneur Oliver El-Khatib and longtime producer Noah “40” Shebib in 2008. It offers unisex sportswear such as T-shirts, hoodies and quarter-zips, and operates eight stores in Canada, three in the U.S. and one in London. It also has a golf collection as well as a collaboration with the UFC and has partnered in the past with Dsquared2. It’s known for its black and gold palette and its owl logo, a reference to Drake’s night owl lifestyle. The brand name is a nod to the month of his birth.
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“We’re just a couple kids from Toronto who started something we believed in. Here we are 20 years later, same kids with bigger dreams. Authentic and Vince are the perfect partners to help us continue to grow,” said Drake.
Vince already has a relationship with Authentic. In 2023, Authentic signed an agreement to acquire the intellectual property of the Vince brand and established a subsidiary, ABG Vince, under which Authentic owns 75 percent while Vince Holding owns 25 percent. As part of that deal, Vince Holding entered into a licensing deal with Authentic to operate Vince’s wholesale, retail and e-commerce businesses.
OVO will be run as a separate division and the existing Toronto-based creative and design teams will remain intact while Vince Holding will spearhead production and back-of-house functions, according to Brendan Hoffman, chief executive officer of Vince Holding Corp. “This is really a growth story.”
A portion of the sales proceeds of OVO will be used to strengthen that brand’s balance sheet and support Vince Holding’s plan to grow the business. That will include adding stores in the U.S. and beginning to wholesale, according to Hoffman. “We’ve already explored different markets in the U.S.,” he said, adding, “It’s nice to have a blank canvas.”
He said the initial plan calls for opening three stores next year in the States and adding OVO to the assortment of major retailers beginning in 2027.
“Few brands combine influence, elevated style and approachability the way OVO does,” said Hoffman. “We are proud that Authentic has chosen us as their partner and we are energized by the trust that comes with it. OVO’s creative and design identity remains its own, and our role is to support that vision and bring it to more consumers around the world.”
The addition of OVO provides Vince Holding with access to the global streetwear market, a category expected to account for nearly $500 billion in sales by 2028, and one that the company is not currently in. “We’re excited to get into a new space,” Hoffman said.
It also allows the Vince brand access to the Canadian market, according to Hoffman, who said the company will also explore opening Vince stores and entering the wholesale channel in that country.
“What appealed to us about OVO is that it was never just a fashion brand or an entertainment brand,” Jamie Salter, founder and executive chairman of Authentic, told WWD. “Drake has built a true lifestyle brand with influence across fashion, music, art and culture, but it’s unmistakably OVO. That’s exactly the kind of brand we at Authentic know how to grow.”
He added that “one of our core beliefs at Authentic is that iconic brands don’t need to choose between staying culturally relevant and scaling globally. Our platform is built to do both. We can create opportunities across content, experiences and global commerce, including the kinds of collaborations that introduce OVO to new audiences while keeping the brand elevated and authentic.
“We’re incredibly excited to be partners with Drake. He has already proven he knows how to build culture. Our role isn’t to tell him how to do that. It’s to bring the right partners, relationships and global opportunities to interpret his vision. And we see OVO as just the beginning of a much larger business relationship. We look forward to pursuing many more deals together.”
Hoffman said he had dinner with the artist last week and “he seems awfully enthusiastic and ready to lean in. Obviously he has a day job, but we’re excited to partner with him.”
The announcement also prompted the company to update its outlook for the second quarter, ended Aug. 1. As a result of “continued momentum” in the current business, Vince Holdings now projects net sales to be about $81 million, the high end of its prior guidance, and adjusted operating income as a percent of sales and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization as a percent of sales to be in line with the high end of prior guidance, excluding any benefit from tariff refunds. The quarter ended Aug. 1 and the company plans to report results by Sept. 15.
“We’re happy with Vince’s place in the contemporary world and business has never been stronger,” Hoffman said.
Authentic, which has a strong entertainment arm as well as a fashion division, can potentially use Drake to enhance its content, experiences and global commerce, much as it does with its other partners such as O’Neal.
As Hoffman put it: “Jamie always says content drives commerce and who better to do that than Drake?”
