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About F&F

F&F is a Seoul-based fashion company known for building licensed brands into large apparel franchises. Its flagship business designs, produces, and retails clothing and accessories under the MLB brand, licensed from Major League Baseball, and the Discovery Expedition outdoor label, licensed from the U.S. media group behind the Discovery channel. The company sells through department stores, its own retail network, duty-free channels, and online platforms, and has extended the MLB brand across Asia, where China became a major market. F&F operates beneath F&F Holdings, the family-controlled holding company of founder Kim Chang-soo's group.

Foreign investors treat F&F largely as a play on Chinese and broader Asian consumer demand, since the MLB brand's growth has come mainly from overseas expansion, including travel-retail channels sensitive to tourist flows. A structural consideration is that both core brands are licensed rather than owned, making renewal terms and royalty arrangements a long-term watch point. The company also sits beneath a listed family holding company, a two-tier arrangement common in Korea that raises the usual questions about related-party dealings, capital allocation, and where value accrues between the two listings.

F&F traces its roots to the family behind Samsung Publishing, the children's book house established in 1964, from which founder Kim Chang-soo branched out to create a fashion business in 1992. The company built itself on licensed labels, and its 1997 agreement with Major League Baseball proved transformative, followed by the launch of Discovery Expedition in 2012. In May 2021 the original corporation split in two, creating F&F Holdings as the family's listed control vehicle and a newly listed operating F&F carrying the brands. The company later added the Italian tennis-heritage label Sergio Tacchini through an acquisition.

Under its licensing agreements, F&F pays royalties to trademark owners while keeping control of design, sourcing, and distribution, capturing the margin between brand-driven retail prices and outsourced production costs. Merchandise is developed in Seoul, manufactured by contract factories, and sold through department stores, standalone shops, duty-free counters, and online storefronts in Korea and across Asia. The company invested early in data-driven merchandising, using digital sell-through signals to steer inventory decisions. Its competitive edge lies in reinterpreting foreign trademarks for Asian streetwear tastes faster than rivals can, a skill that turned a baseball license into a regional lifestyle franchise.

Company profile by LineVest editorial. Journalism, not investment advice. Commission a full DART-based report on F&F →