Patagonia Founder Sells Company for $3 Billion: Earth Is Now Our Sole Shareholder

“Instead of ‘going public’, you can say ‘we go public. Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard said of his decision to sell the multi-billion dollar company.

Patagonia has a new owner – Earth.

Yvonne Chouinard founder of the renowned outdoor retailer. Announced in an open letter on the company’s website that she and her family have donated Patagonia to nonprofits and allocated trusts to help fight climate change. Patagonia is worth about $3 billion.

In his message entitled “Earth is now our sole shareholder,” 83-year-old Chouinard admitted, “I never wanted to be an entrepreneur.”

Instead, he began his career as a craftsman, designing “climbing gear for my friends. Before entering the apparel industry with Patagonia. He highlighted the company’s mission to help prevent “global warming and environmental degradation” by making eco-friendly clothing and donating 1 percent of its sales each year. It was later certified as a B Corp and granted benefits company status in California.

Since then, Patagonia has been “in the business of saving our home planet.”

Chouinard knew there were several ways to serve this initiative. “One option is to sell Patagonia and donate all the money,” he wrote. “But we can’t be sure that the new owners will keep our values ​​or keep our team of people around the world going.”

He added that Patagonia could also go public, a move he said would be an inevitable “catastrophe”.

“To be honest, there were no good choices. So we made our own,” he explained, adding, “Instead of ‘going public’, you could say ‘singing the goal’. Rather than extracting value from nature and turning it into wealth for investors. We will use the wealth that created by Patagonia to protect the source of all wealth.”