EXCLUSIVE: Randa Acquires Untuckit, Will Operate It as a Stand-alone Business

Founders Chris Riccobono and Aaron Sanandres will remain, new owners project doubling sales to $500 million.

By Jean E. Pamieri

Seemingly all of the action in the fashion M&A market these days is centered around the big brand management firms such as Authentic Brands Group, WHP Global and Marquee.

But there are still a handful of strategic buyers with a war chest full of cash that are also quietly among the players. One of those is Randa Apparel & Accessories.

As proof, the venerable New York-based company revealed that it is acquiring Untuckit, the brand founded by Chris Riccobono and Aaron Sanandres in 2011 as men’s shirts designed to be worn untucked. Terms were not disclosed.

Both Riccobono and Sanandres, who became friends during their time in Columbia Business School, will remain with Untuckit, running the day-to-day operations. Their team is also expected to remain intact, along with the brand’s SoHo offices.

“This will be a stand-alone business. We are not integrating it,” stressed David Katz, Randa’s longtime executive vice president and chief marketing officer.

Instead, Randa will draw on Untuckit’s expertise in e-commerce, brick-and-mortar retail and consumer data to help its other businesses. And Randa’s ambitious goal for Untuckit is to create the next classic American brand, Katz said.

Randa, a privately held company that was founded in 1910 as a neckwear manufacturer, built its business as an accessories manufacturer. Today it holds accessories licenses for more than 40 brands including Calvin Klein, Chaps, Dickies, Izod, Levi’s, Kenneth Cole, Tommy Hilfiger and Tommy Bahama. It began to shift its focus to apparel starting in 2019 when it acquired Haggar and Tribal Fashion, a women’s brand. Since then it has also purchased Moss Bros., a U.K.-based menswear retailer, in 2020, along with XIX Palms, a Los Angeles-based women’s brand last year. Randa also continued to expand its accessories reach by acquiring Swank in 2012 and Totes Isotoner in partnership with Marquee Brands in 2024.

Untuckit has estimated sales of between $200 million and $250 million and operates about 70 stores around the U.S. in addition to a robust e-commerce business. Since getting its start in men’s shirts, the company has expanded into a range of other categories including polos, pants, shorts, sweaters, sport coats and jeans as well as womenswear. It also wholesales to such retailers as Macy’s and Von Maur.

Katz said Randa has “admired Untuckit and its leadership for quite a few years. We’ve been keeping an eye on it.” He cited its strength in product and its loyal customer base as key to the brand’s success. “They own and define the classification of untucked shirts; what Chris and Aaron have done is just remarkable. And there are not a lot of classic American brands that can scale.”

He said Randa “has a great balance sheet, and we’re always looking for brands we can own to add to the mix of brands that we license.”

While Randa has built an extensive global sourcing and manufacturing network over the past century, its primary business continues to be as a manufacturer of branded apparel and accessories. “We’re primarily a wholesaler without a lot of consumer data,” Katz said, adding the company’s goal is to more effectively “engage directly” with consumers. “We need to balance our wholesale leadership with direct-to-consumer expertise. Untuckit does a remarkable job of that.”

“Randa brings something different: more than a century of relationships with the world’s leading retailers and suppliers, along with the global capabilities to help Untuckit reach its next stage,” Riccobono said.

He said that like many other businesses, Untuckit has faced a number of challenges over the past five years including the COVID-19 pandemic, high interest rates, tariffs and other macroeconomic issues. “But we continued to succeed because we have a strong brand,” he said.

Entering wholesale presented a whole new set of challenges to the company’s “cap table,” he said. “We were able to move forward but it’ll be good to get some more money behind us and Randa is an expert in wholesale.”

So combining Randa’s expertise in navigating the wholesale market coupled with Untuckit’s strong e-commerce skills, “if you look at the next 10 to 20 years, we can be the next great American brand,” Riccobono said.

“Untuckit has done an incredible job turning this brand from a start-up into one of the most recognizable men’s apparel brands in the U.S.,” he continued. “We believe that this can be a $500 million-plus business. Our story is just getting started, and there is so much more we can do together. The skills and resources that got us to this point are different than the capabilities we’re going to need to take this huge next step. Randa provides these capabilities and resources.”

He said Untuckit targets a wide demographic — people aged 25 to 75 — and is “on our way to becoming a very large brand.” And with Randa’s expertise, “we will keep clawing forward.”

Riccobono added that Untuckit’s burgeoning women’s business has been strong. “Our business at Von Maur and Macy’s is outperforming the percentage we will in e-comm,” he said. “Now we can scale it even more.” Especially popular is the company’s wrinkle-free shirts. “There’s a lot of upside there.”

His partner agrees. “We’ve spent the last 15 years building Untuckit one customer at a time and creating a brand with a very clear point of view. Randa understands what makes the brand special, and I’m excited about what we can build together from here.”

Regarding its retail stores, Untuckit at one point had more than 80 stores, but it closed around a dozen units that were either unprofitable or too small. That includes its Madison Avenue store in New York.

“We’re strong believers in stores, but some locations were never the same after COVID,” Riccobono said. He said the brand will be looking for a larger flagship space on Madison Avenue, and “Randa has plans for a much larger number of stores to open,” Katz said.

“Untuckit did the hard thing: it built a direct relationship with the consumer, store by store and click by click,” said Justin Spiegel, president of Randa. “Randa will add capital, global sourcing and market-leading retail relationships to that foundation. Together, we will accelerate the brand’s growth and introduce it to many more consumers.”

Katz said for Randa, “it’s important for us to get to a market-leading position.” He said Haggar is the number-one non-denim pant and blazer in America, Randa is the largest belt and wallet producer and Totes umbrellas are also the biggest selling product in that classification.

“It’s not a hard definition, but it’s hard for us to do small deals effectively,” Katz said. “We’re better at buying businesses that have grown and become successful. And the Untuckit team is great at e-comm and mortar-and-brick.”

Riccobono said he will continue to be the face of Untuckit and Sanandres will also remain as chief executive officer. “We’ll have the same structure and roles,” he said, but will lean on Randa’s operations and processes to “improve the whole structure.”

Both of the Untuckit founders also operate small businesses on the side. Riccobono created Greatness Wins, an activewear brand, with Derek Jeter, Wayne Gretzky and Misty Copeland in 2022, and Sanandres founded Definite Articles, a sustainable performance brand, in 2021. “They’re passion projects,” Riccobono said, “and they’re very small.”

For Randa, Katz said the company will continue to look for other brands to acquire, if the fit is right. “We’re long-term, strategic buyers, we invest and look forward to what we can bring with our sourcing, wholesale relationships, automation, artificial intelligence tools and other resources.”