Wolverine Worldwide

Company Profile

Wolverine Worldwide today runs a focused portfolio - Merrell, Saucony, Sweaty Betty, Hush Puppies, Wolverine, Chaco, Bates, HYTEST and Stride Rite, plus the Cat and Harley-Davidson footwear licenses - under president and chief executive Chris Hufnagel, having sold Sperry in 2024 to concentrate on its strongest brands. It was named Footwear News' Company of the Year for 2025. The shop box on this page covers its brands' footwear, which both marketplaces carry.

The brand: for over 130 years, the Wolverine brand has been the sturdy sole that helped shape a nation. They are born of work - hard work, the kind it takes to build the things that endure for generations - and that storied legacy in work continues to build the brand's future. The company has moved far beyond just the Wolverine footwear brand: with a commitment to service and product excellence, Wolverine World Wide, Inc. is one of the world's leading marketers of branded casual, active lifestyle, work, outdoor sport, athletic, children's and uniform footwear and apparel.

The portfolio as this directory recorded it in its fuller years included Merrell, Sperry Top-Sider, Hush Puppies, Saucony, Wolverine, Keds, Stride Rite, Sebago, Cushe, Chaco, Bates, HYTEST and Soft Style, and the company was the global footwear licensee of popular brands including Cat, Harley-Davidson and Patagonia, with products carried by leading retailers in the U.S. and globally in approximately 200 countries and territories. The current portfolio is tighter - the snapshot above lists it - and the changes are set out in the history note below.

A Short History Note

The company began in 1883 when G.A. Krause and Fredrick Hirth founded a tannery business in Grand Rapids, Michigan - the Hirth-Krause Company - and opened its shoe plant in nearby Rockford in 1903. It took the Wolverine name from the pigskin leather, soft even after getting wet, that became Hush Puppies in 1958: the casual suede shoe born from surplus pigskin became a 1960s phenomenon and is still in the portfolio. The company listed publicly in 1965 as Wolverine World Wide - WWW on the New York Stock Exchange, decades before those letters meant a web address.

The modern portfolio was assembled by acquisition, above all the 2012 purchase that brought Merrell and Saucony into the group, and the 2021 acquisition of the women's active brand Sweaty Betty for about $410 million. Recent years have been about focus under president and chief executive Chris Hufnagel: Sperry was sold in 2024, following Keds, and the group consolidated around its strongest performers - Merrell, Saucony, Sweaty Betty, Wolverine, Hush Puppies, Chaco, Bates, HYTEST and Stride Rite, plus the Cat and Harley-Davidson footwear licenses. Products are now carried in approximately 170 countries and territories, and in 2025 Footwear News named Wolverine Worldwide its Company of the Year. Because its brands' shoes are carried on both marketplaces, this page includes the shop box.