Express, Inc. is an American

fashion Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion i ...

retailer Retail is the sale of goods and Service (economics), services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturing, manufacturers, dire ...

that caters mainly to young men and women. The company is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. Express operates 500+ stores in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, Costa Rica,

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...

, El Salvador and Guatemala. Express, Inc. consists of the brands Express and UpWest, and is traded on the NYSE under the symbol EXPR. In 2022, the company was named in the Forbes Top 500 as #357 America's Best Large Employers 2022 and also #80 as Best Employers for Diversity 2022

History

Limited Brands Bath & Body Works, Inc. (formerly known as L Brands, Inc., Limited Brands, Inc. and The Limited, Inc.) is an American specialty retail company based in Columbus, Ohio. It owns Bath & Body Works, posted $11.9 billion in revenue in 2021, and was ...

, in 1980, opened the first Express store, as women's clothier "Limited Express" in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Water Tower Place Water Tower Place is a large urban, mixed-use development comprising a shopping mall, hotel, theater, and condominiums in a 74-story skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The mall is located at 835 North Michigan Avenue, along the Mag ...

. Former CEO Michael Weiss joined the brand in 1981 when the test expanded to include eight stores. By 1986, Express had 250 stores and began testing the sale of men's merchandise in 16 stores the following year. The men's fashion line was spun off into its own brand, Structure, in 1989. In 2001, Express became a dual gender brand with the reintegration of its Structure stores as "Express Men". Dual gender Express stores began opening the following year. Structure apparel brand was sold to

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

in 2003. In November 2019, Express announced spinoff UpWest, a DTC lifestyle brand geared towards health, wellness, and sustainability. With the launch of UpWest also came its philanthropic arm, The UpWest Foundation, which will donate 1% of total sales up to $1million towards Mental Health America, Random Acts and Freedom Dogs of America.

Express as a privately held company

On May 16, 2007, Limited Brands announced its intent to sell a 67% stake in Express to an affiliate of a private equity firm called

Golden Gate Capital Partners Golden Gate Capital is an American private equity firm based in San Francisco. The firm makes investments in a number of select industries, including technology, financial services, retail and industrial, through leveraged buyout transactions, as ...

, based in San Francisco. When the sale was finalized in July 2007, Golden Gate's stake in the company was 75% instead of the announced 67%. On May 13, 2010, the company sold 16 million shares for $17 each, raising about $272 million. Shares had been planned to sell between $18 and $20 each. On May 14, 2010, the shares opened at $17 to $16.50 before recovering slightly to close down 1.5% at $16.75 on the New York Stock Exchange. Since the IPO, Golden Gate and Limited Brands gradually reduced their ownership interest in the Company. On July 29, 2011, Limited Brands sold its remaining ownership interest in the Company, and as a result of this disposition, ceased to be a related party as of the end of the second quarter of 2011. On March 19, 2012, Golden Gate sold its remaining ownership interest in the Company, and as of May 31, 2012, Golden Gate no longer had representation on the Board. As a result of the disposition and Board seat removal, Golden Gate ceased to be a related party as of June 1, 2012.

Design studio

Express clothes are designed at the Express Design Studio on 111 Fifth Avenue

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, New York in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

Flatiron District The Flatiron District is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, named after the Flatiron Building at 23rd Street, Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Generally, the Flatiron District is bounded by 14th Street, Union Square and Gre ...

References

External links

* {{Authority control 2010 initial public offerings American companies established in 1980 Clothing retailers of the United States Clothing brands of the United States Companies based in the Columbus, Ohio metropolitan area Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Defunct retail companies of Canada Retail companies established in 1980 Meme stock