K-Swiss Has a New Owner: Inside the Brand’s Comeback Plans

K-Swiss, the nearly 60-year-old brand, has a new executive team, new shoe designs, a new owner — and, by the end of the year, a new headquarters in Glendale, California.

This week, the Los Angeles-based footwear company unveiled a range of new spring ’25 designs with technology and performance top of mind.

The new shoe styles are part of the label’s plans to return to profitability.

It’s been a frenetic few years for the company: In 2019, it was acquired for $260 million by Xtep International Holdings Limited, a Chinese sports equipment maker with $2 billion in annual revenues. Xtep’s purchase came at a challenging time, right before COVID-19 sent the world into an economic tailspin. Despite the pandemic, Xtep went on to open 60 K-Swiss stores in China with high-end products selling for as much as $140.

But amid challenges, Xtep recently announced it entered into a definitive agreement with its controlling shareholder, Ding Shui Po, for the sale and privatization of KP Global, which houses the K-Swiss and Palladium brands. The transaction was valued at $151 million.

“We faced three years of pandemic-related disruptions and an economic slowdown in China, which led to reduced consumer spending and adversely affected KP Global’s performance,” noted Ding, Xtep’s chairman and chief executive officer. “This strategic divestiture will eliminate the ongoing impact on Xtep’s profitability and cash flows attributable to the loss incurred by KP Global.”

Xtep said it would concentrate on its other licensed brands, including Merrell and Saucony. 

With profits waning, K-Swiss is injecting newness into the company. It brought back long-time former K-Swiss executive Barney Waters to become the company’s international brand president. Previously, he had been at the company for eight years. He left K-Swiss in 2021 to become president of Garrett Leight California Optical, and returned last November. “I left the brand in good shape, but the job is not done. It never really had a resurgence again, which is what I would love to be able to do,” Waters said.

“By taking K-Swiss private,” he added, “it allows us greater flexibility and opportunity to grow, while remaining in the Xtep family ensures our leadership and daily operations remain unchanged.”

The K-Swiss brand president kicked off the shoe presentation at Milk Studios in Los Angeles by saying the new shoe designs will be like waking a sleeping giant. “Everybody knows the brand, but in terms of being able to articulate what it’s doing today, it has been a struggle,” Waters explained.

K-Swiss was started in 1966 by Art and Ernie Brunner, two Swiss brothers who came to California and launched K-Swiss with one shoe silhouette – an all-leather tennis shoes whose design was taken from a ski boot that provided more lateral movement for better court play. The K-Swiss Classic was a hit and stayed at the top of the product charts for many years. Today, tennis and pickleball make up nearly half of K-Swiss’s revenues, Waters said.

Court shoes is one aspect, but moving into other sports and lifestyle arenas is another growth opportunity. In 2022, K-Swiss established a multi-year partnership with the McLaren Racing team that has K-Swiss supplying McLaren Race team mechanics, engineers, and other personnel with performance shoes. Last year, the partnership released three collaborative collections, and more are on the way for 2025, including the Aero Active II, the second generation of the Aero Active.

Rudy Manival, K-Swiss’s relatively new director of products, said when he interviewed for the job, he described the K-Swiss collection as “looking tired.”  K-Swiss is changing that image by introducing products with new forms, new materials and softer leather for comfort.  “We have to change the way we work,” Manival said. “We are looking at how we can do things differently from design innovation, performance and manufacturing. Innovation is clearly important for us to get back into the conversation.”

For the 2025 season, Don Reardon, the founder and principal partner of IDW, a footwear, apparel and hard goods design company in Portland, Oregon, worked with K-Swiss to develop some technological innovations. “Our job is to go in and give a different perspective than brands have internally,” Reardon explained.

Reardon’s team analyzed the mechanical elements that supply strength and came up with the K-Frame, a 45-degree angle support added to a shoe’s side for stability. “The K-Frame blurs the traditional demarcation line between the upper and bottom unit by joining the top to bottom closure system to ground one. It is the oldest stability statement in sports,” the designer said. The K-Frame is one of the new innovations being added to the K-Swiss line-up.

Other new products for the 2025 collection include: The Impulse Tubes Lite, a sleekly designed shoe with the company’s Tubes Lite technology for a lighter, more cushioned upgrade. Rubber pods on the outsole help deliver traction and durability. The Techna Trainer pays homage to the 90’s urban style and culture while playing up comfort. The Metro, with a plush foam midsole, is a trainer designed to blend style and functionality.