Why 3G Capital's Acquisition of Skechers Is the Firm's Most Ambitious Bet Yet

7th May 2026
The $9.4 billion deal marks a new chapter and reveals how Alex Behring and Daniel Schwartz have quietly evolved their playbook When 3G Capital announced its acquisition of Skechers in May 2025, the headline number alone was enough to stop the investment world in its tracks. At $9.4 billion, the deal was the largest in the history of the footwear industry, eclipsing every prior transaction in the sector by a significant margin. But for those who have followed 3G Capital closely, the more remarkable detail was not the price. It was the patience behind it. Alex Behring, co-founder and co-managing partner of 3G Capital, and Daniel Schwartz, co-managing partner, had been studying the footwear industry for nearly a decade before making their move. Their first visit to Skechers' Manhattan Beach headquarters came in late 2021 and no transaction was discussed. For the next several years, they watched. They returned annually. That discipline, the willingness to follow a business for years before committing capital, is the thread that runs through everything 3G Capital has ever done. It is the same approach that led to the Burger King acquisition in 2010, the Hunter Douglas deal in 2022, and now Skechers. As the Colossus profile Built to Own documents in remarkable detail, 3G has never lost money on a deal. That record is not accidental. A Founder-Led Business at the Right Moment Skechers fits a template that 3G Capital has refined across two decades of investing. The company is founder-led. Robert Greenberg co-founded it in 1992 and has run it ever since alongside his son Michael. It is a dominant player in its category: the third-largest footwear company in the world behind Nike ($51 billion in annual revenue) and Adidas ($27 billion), with $9 billion in annual sales across approximately 5,300 stores in 180 countries. The footwear industry is growing at 7% annually and is expected to maintain that pace. In Alex Behring and Daniel Schwartz Invest Like the Best interview with Patrick O'Shaughnessy, one of the most substantive public conversations either man has ever given, Behring described the firm's investment criteria in precise terms: they look for businesses where strong customer relationships make disintermediation unlikely, where the brand has proven resilience over decades. The Greenberg family's decision to retain meaningful equity in the new private structure and to remain in their executive roles is consistent with how 3G Capital prefers to operate. The firm is not in the business of installing its own management teams and walking away. It partners with the people who built the business, provides operational expertise and long-term capital, and lets compounding do the rest. The same dynamic defined the Hunter Douglas deal, where David Sonnenberg stayed on as executive chairman and continues to be an active partner alongside 3G Capital. The International Growth Opportunity 3G Capital’s firm's track record of scaling brands across global markets is unmatched in private equity. When it acquired Burger King in 2010, the chain operated in 76 countries but dominated almost none of them. By building local entrepreneur partnerships, giving operators exclusive rights to a country in exchange for aggressive development commitments, 3G Capital dramatically accelerated net new restaurant openings, eventually exceeding 1,000 per year at the brand's peak international growth. The parallels with Skechers are clear. The brand already generates roughly two-thirds of its revenue internationally. But there are still vast geographies, including Southeast Asia, Latin America, and parts of the Middle East, where Skechers' presence remains nascent relative to its potential. Alex Behring and Daniel Schwartz have built exactly this kind of international growth infrastructure before. The Forbes profile of 3G Capital notes that the firm views Skechers' global footprint as a platform with significant room to grow, particularly in markets where the brand is known but underdistributed. Freedom From Short-Term Thinking One of the most significant strategic advantages of taking Skechers private is the freedom it creates. As a publicly traded company, Skechers faced the quarterly earnings cycle that constrains every listed business, the pressure to optimise for near-term margins at the expense of longer-term investment. Under 3G Capital's ownership, that pressure disappears. This matters because the investments Skechers plans to make, in digital channels, global distribution infrastructure, and direct-to-consumer expansion, are the kind that take years to bear fruit. They are exactly the kind of investments that 3G Capital, is built to support. As the Colossus profile Built to Own notes, the firm has no 10-year fund clock pressuring it to sell. That structure is not incidental to its success. It is central to it. Robert Greenberg captured the spirit of the partnership in his own statement: “Given their remarkable history of facilitating the success of some of the most iconic global consumer businesses, we believe this partnership will support our talented team as they execute their expertise to meet the needs of our consumers and customers while enabling the company’s long-term growth.” As Valor Econômico reported at the time, the deal follows the same structure as the Hunter Douglas acquisition, in which the founding family also retained a stake and remained in their executive roles. In a statement announcing the transaction, Alex Behring said, “Our team at 3G Capital is built to partner with companies like Skechers.” For those who have followed the firm’s trajectory, from a Brazilian investment office in 2004 to the steward of some of the world’s most recognisable consumer brands, that statement reads less like corporate boilerplate and more like a precise description of twenty years of deliberate preparation. The Skechers acquisition is 3G Capital's most ambitious single bet. It is also, in the context of everything the firm has built, perhaps its most logical one. As Behring told Valor Econômico in March 2026, the portfolio of RBI, Hunter Douglas and Skechers is “exceptionally well positioned for the coming decades, with ample room for reinvestment and compound growth.”