Rascal founder buys back brand from JD Sports

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Mar 10, 2023

The co-founder of Rascal Clothing, Billy Wingrove, has bought back the brand from JD Sports for an undisclosed sum. The move had seemed likely after earlier news that the brand had been withdrawn from the basket of labels JD was selling to Frasers Group.

Despite only owning it for less than four years, Rascal had been among 15 non-core fashion businesses JD said it was divesting in December as it focused heavily on its big-name sports chains.

But in February it emerged that one of its founders had exercised his right to take back the brand as set out in its original purchase deal in early 2019.

Wingrove is now the sole owner of the business that trades as Topgrade Sportswear.

Rascal focuses mainly on kidswear but also offers adults’ clothing and Wingrove wants to build on this.

He said the label has seen rapid growth since it was founded in 2014.

Wingrove is a well known digital content creator having emerged from the Youtube community via the football-focused F2Freestylers Youtube channel and later his own The Wingrove Family. The latter is one of the UK’s fastest-growing YouTube family channels.

That gives Rascal massive potential marketing exposure as he works to grow the brand.

Wingrove said of his plans: “We've witnessed high growth in the last few years and our goal is to bring to the market, a new fresh innovative catalogue that will spread across many different genres of clothing whilst staying stylish, high quality and accessible.

“Our main market is a junior market, however, our clothing isn’t just limited to juniors with unique ranges for adults and both sexes, which we’re keen to expand.”