Marubeni Corporation Acquires UK Footwear Brand Jacobson Group, Including Gola, to Establish Lifestyle Brand Platform

Tokyo, Japan, January 7, 2026 – The global lifestyle brand market just got a new, formidable player.

Marubeni Corporation is a Japanese trading and investment giant, has announced its acquisition of Jacobson Group Limited, a UK-based footwear brand owner whose portfolio includes the heritage British sneaker brand Gola.

This strategic move is part of Marubeni’s ambitious initiative to build a scalable lifestyle brand business platform, anchored by its existing R.G. Barry Corporation (RGB) acquisition. The question is, can this “roll-up” strategy successfully blend diverse brands and create a new pillar for Marubeni?

Jacobson Group was founded in 1982 and owns and operates several footwear brands, but its flagship is Gola. Established in 1905, Gola boasts a rich legacy in British sports, particularly football, and is known for designs that seamlessly blend classic heritage silhouettes with contemporary fashion sensibilities.

Its products are distributed in over 30 countries, primarily across the UK, North America, and Europe. This long-standing brand equity, built over more than 120 years, combined with Jacobson’s expertise in footwear planning and development, makes it a valuable target for global expansion.

This acquisition, executed by Marubeni Consumer Platform U.S. (MCPU), represents the first “roll-up” transaction for RGB, which Marubeni acquired in 2024. RGB is already a lifestyle brand management company, notably owning Dearfoams, a market leader in U.S. room shoes and slippers.

By combining RGB’s robust sales infrastructure and corporate functions with Jacobson’s brand portfolio, Marubeni aims to simultaneously accelerate Jacobson’s growth and expand its overall lifestyle brand business platform. The synergy, they hope, will be exponential.

Under its Mid-Term Management Strategy GC2027, Marubeni is laser-focused on “Strategic Platform Businesses,” emphasizing “Growth Domains x High Added Value x Scalability.” The Next Generation Corporate Development Division is specifically tasked with capturing growth in high-potential consumer-related businesses through investments and M&A, with the goal of building new pillars for Marubeni by 2030.

In the lifestyle brand management sector, this means a continuous expansion of its brand portfolio and earnings base through synergistic acquisitions, while developing brands that “closely align with increasingly diverse consumer preferences.”

This is a grander vision of long-term corporate value enhancement through targeted consumer market investments.

Marubeni is a diversified conglomerate that is betting that a curated collection of lifestyle brands, managed under a unified platform, can unlock significant value. The challenge will be integrating diverse brand cultures, maintaining individual brand identities (especially for a heritage brand like Gola), and navigating different global consumer markets effectively.

But if successful, this strategy could indeed create a new, powerful force in the lifestyle consumer goods sector.