Japan's oldest listed apparel maker was owed $45M by its own owner

Renown was founded in 1947 and listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, growing into one of Japan's largest apparel groups with 51 subsidiaries. Its brands — Arnold Palmer, Hiroko Koshino, D'Urban, and for a time Aquascutum — were fixtures of the department-store floor. The company was also known internationally for sponsoring Mazda's motorsport programme, including the 787B that won Le Mans in 1991.

Around 2010, China's Shandong Ruyi took a leading stake in Renown and later became majority shareholder. The acquisition was part of Shandong Ruyi's global buying spree — SMCP, Aquascutum, Bally — funded by debt. Renown reported losses for years under the new ownership. By early 2020 it disclosed that Shandong Ruyi owed it more than ¥5 billion ($45 million) it could not collect. Shandong Ruyi, itself under refinancing pressure, voted out Renown's top executives.

When Japan declared a state of emergency in April 2020, department stores closed for a month and Renown's sales fell sharply. On 15 May 2020, the company filed for bankruptcy protection with ¥13.9 billion ($130 million) in debt. It was one of more than 140 Japanese companies to fail during the outbreak. A 73-year-old institution with a Le Mans pedigree was brought down not by the pandemic alone, but by a parent company that treated its subsidiary's cash as its own.