Coats Group plc (LON:COA), a world leading Tier 2 supplier of critical components to the apparel and footwear industry, has announced that, further to Coats’ announcements on 16 July 2025 and 29 July 2025, following receipt of all required regulatory clearances, it has completed the acquisition of OrthoLite Holdings LLC, the global market leader in premium insoles.
This acquisition strengthens the product portfolio and capabilities of the existing Coats footwear business through expansion into the attractive, high growth premium insole segment. OrthoLite is highly complementary, with significant overlap in customers, route to market and operational footprint, and opportunities to accelerate growth through innovation and cross-selling. In addition, the Group is targeting initial annualised joint cost synergies of $20 million available by 2028, leveraging Coats’ experience of delivering significant value from footwear acquisitions.
For the purposes of UKLR 7.3.3, Coats confirms that there has been no material change affecting any matter contained in the Acquisition Announcement or the Further Information Announcement.
To reflect the new profile and scale of the Group’s businesses, Coats is streamlining its organisational structure into two divisions: Apparel and Footwear. Following the exit from the non-core Americas Yarns business earlier this year, the remaining Performance Materials businesses are being incorporated within this new structure as follows:
· The Personal Protection and Performance Threads businesses (c.80% of Performance Materials) will become part of the Apparel division, which Adrian Elliott will continue to lead.
· The Telecom & Energy business (c.20% of Performance Materials) will become part of the Footwear division, alongside OrthoLite. The enlarged Footwear division will be led by Pasquale Abruzzese.
This new organisational structure better aligns the divisions and their underlying technologies and reduces internal operating complexity. The structural improvements in Performance Materials over the last 12 months, which have delivered substantial margin progression and a return to organic growth, will enable the reorganisation to be implemented efficiently. Coats’ external reporting will align to this new structure with effect from the next financial year, the year ending December 2026.
Current Trading
The Group is also pleased to report that trading through the third quarter at both Coats and OrthoLite has continued to be in line with expectations. The Group will release its usual trading update for the four-month period from 1 July to the end of October 2025 on Friday, 7 November 2025.
David Paja, Coats Group Chief Executive, commented:
“The acquisition of OrthoLite is an important step in our strategy to build a more growth-oriented group and we are delighted to welcome Glenn Barrett and our OrthoLite colleagues to Coats. We will now press ahead with our plans to accelerate innovation and sustainability in the footwear industry as we combine the capabilities of two global leaders in adjacent product categories.”
Conference Call
Coats Management will host a presentation for analysts and institutional investors via webcast at 08:30 today. To access the meeting, please sign up using the following link: Coats Investor Meeting. The webcast can also be accessed via https://www.coats.com/en/investors/results/.
