DREAM BIG

Aerosoles and White Mountain Footwear Group

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ALEN MAMROUT FIRST stuck his toe in the shoe business in 2018 with the acquisition of Yokids, then a small girls’ brand that he rapidly expanded into additional footwear categories. The CEO of American Exchange Group, who first made his mark in the watches and wearables market as a retailer and then as a wholesaler, saw great potential through product extensions. This formula has been Mamrout’s modus operandi since launching American Exchange Group in 2008 as a watch wholesaler that has since rapidly expanded into wearables, apparel and footwear. The company portfolio currently totals more than 30 owned and licensed brands, including Kendall + Kylie, Jones New York and Ed Hardy, as well as 12 footwear brands. In addition to Aerosoles and last month’s acquisition of White Mountain Footwear (White Mountain, Cliffs and White MT), they include the owned Jessica Carlyle, American Exchange, Olivia + Kate and Alexis Bendel labels and licenses for Mark Ecko, South Pole, Mudd, Mossimo and Rampage.

“We unlock the value in our brands,” Mamrout says. “We expand them into lifestyle brands, instead of being, like in the case of Aerosoles and White Mountain Footwear, women’s shoe brands, which is what they have been up to now.”

Since acquiring Aerosoles in January 2022 from Alden Global Capital, Mamrout’s team has gone full throttle on the 36-year-old brand’s lifestyle product extensions. Those include a women’s cold weather (scarves, gloves and hats) capsule collection introduced this past holiday season and, for Spring ’23, introductions of men’s and women’s flip-flops and slippers collections, hanging footwear, men’s socks and even roller skates. This past fall Aerosoles also debuted a kids’ collection. Mamrout believes Aerosoles has the brand elasticity to succeed in these categories based on its rich heritage as a leading brand known for its comfort technologies. In addition, he cites strong brand recognition and a loyal customer base. “These products are a natural extension and will make Aerosoles accessible to a wider audience,” he says.

Ditto for White Mountain Footwear’s brands. Mamrout is champing at the bit to unlock the group’s lifestyle products potential. “White Mountain is an incredible brand with amazing distribution,” he says. “We plan to unlock that value by extending into kids, men’s casual, work boots, hiker boots, etc.—there’s just so much we can do with those brands. We’ll also leverage Aerosoles’ strong ecommerce platform for White Mountain, which hasn’t been the company’s focus. We have a solid team in place and expect to grow their digital sales by 20 to 30 times.”

What White Mountain Footwear does exceptionally well—and has for more than 40 years—is pretty much everything else industry-related. “They are a very welloiled machine and one of the best well-run companies that I’ve seen,” Mamrout says, noting the company is a leading vendor for Kohl’s, Ross, Macy’s and DSW, among other majors. “They are a powerhouse.” To that end, Aerosoles is being integrated into White Mountain Footwear’s operations, enabling the brands to benefit from their respective core competencies. “White Mountain will be in charge of Aerosoles’ sales, sourcing, development, production, etc.,” he says. “Everything will stay in New England, but they will now have showrooms in New York as well.”

In addition to smoother operations, Mamrout believes White Mountain’s deep retailer relationships will go a long way in helping Aerosoles get onto more shelves. “White Mountain’s reputation is just impeccable,” he says. “Their sales team handling Aerosoles will be a great way for us to get back in the marketplace in a very impactful way. This will be a gamechanger for Aerosoles.” What’s more, Mamrout notes, is the brands don’t cannibalize each other. “White Mountain is very core, basic comfort and crunchy granola, whereas Aerosoles is more on the fashion side of comfort. There’s reason for them to coexist on shelves.”

While American Exchange Group may be relatively new to the footwear business, Mamrout possesses decades of business experience—even though he’s just 36 years old. That’s because he got his start in the business world at the tender age of 13. There are no high school, college or MBA schools listed on Mamrout’s CV. After emigrating with his family from Syria at age 8, two years later he began working in his brother in-law’s fine jewelry shop in Manhattan’s Herald Square. Three years later, when his brother in-law sought to transition into wholesale, Mamrout asked his father if he could take over the business. “I really pushed and finally convinced my dad that I was ready to work full-time,” he says. “My mom was freaking out, but my dad, coming from our culture, was ok with it. He actually bought the store, and I started out in business with two employees that I inherited.”

Mamrout was a natural, if not a retail prodigy. By about age 16, the store grew from $400,000 to nearly $2 million in revenue. Then, during the Financial Crisis, he went into expansion mode, snapping up prime Manhattan real estate as other businesses shuttered. “I opened an additional eight locations, including Madison Ave., Lexington Ave., 57th Street and Bryant Park.” Over this stretch, Mamrout entered into partnerships with many major watch brands, including Swatch Group, Movado Group. Michael Kors, Kate Spade and Fossil. He also opened four Pandora jewelry boutiques—all by the time he was 25 years old.

“I did really well,” Mamrout says, noting he first met American Exchange Group’s current executive vice president, Steven Cohen, at age 17. “He was the CEO of TechnoMarine, and I was a big account of theirs. Now, he didn’t know that I was 17 at the time…” The exec adds, “It wasn’t normal, but I always had a desire to be in business, so that’s what I did.”

It’s not surprising perhaps that Mamrout would be content with just a retail career. In fact, at age 17, he travelled to China to scout the Canton Fair with ideas of entering the wholesale watch business. “Wholesale was always a goal of mine,” he says. “I started American Exchange Group as a fashion watch company because I had insight into what was going on in the better watch world and believed there was a tremendous opportunity to elevate opening price point fashion watches.” At age 19, Mamrout received his first container shipment of watches under the Jessica Carlyle brand. Soon after, he expanded into private label for ALDO, Dress Barn, Charming Charlie and Francesca’s. Then as a wave of retail consolidation took hold in 2016, into lifestyle categories.” Mamrout adds, “We’re in over 20 categories now. This is just the beginning for American Exchange Group.”

White Mountain Footwear marks American Exchange Group’s second footwear acquisition within the year? Why are you bullish on this segment?

First, our footwear division is growing fast and now ranks as our second biggest category after watches. We have great sourcing partners, strong relationships with retailers and, finally, the timing is good. Aerosoles and White Mountain are gigantic opportunities. There are certain things that are just not being done in the marketplace, at least in the area we want to be involved in. Our formula is to provide product that’s on-trend, high quality and of great value. Every aspect is very important.