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PVH answered G-III’s lawsuit over the Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger suits licenses — and fired back with breach of contract allegations of its own.

When G-III Apparel Group sued PVH Corp. last month — charging that it was improperly denied the right to renew its suits license for Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein — it started to pull back the curtain on a dispute that for years has been roiling just below the surface in fashion.

Now a countersuit filed by PVH divisions Calvin Klein Inc. and Tommy Hilfiger Licensing in New York State Court has brought much more of the strife out to light with claims that G-III “refused to align” with PVH’s new strategic plan and “has seemingly gone out of its way to undermine the parties’ day-to-day business relationship, with its executives hurling profanity, insults and threats.”

A G-III spokesperson said of the countersuit: “These are baseless claims designed to distract from PVH’s own self-inflicted troubles and unlawful actions, and we will continue to vigorously defend our business and contractual rights.”

Just where it all leads remains to be seen. But unless the two decide to settle and try to put all the dirty laundry away, a New York State judge is going to get a chance to rule on the hard-knuckled back-and-forth that clearly still exists on Seventh Avenue.

The PVH/G-III split started not with the air of a personal beef, but that of a begrudging corporate separation. Now it’s getting nasty and the emotions are raw.

According to the countersuit: “A senior executive at G-III even went so far as to make an explicit death threat to a senior PVH executive. In early March 2025, that G-III senior executive told a PVH senior executive that ‘[y]ou’re lucky you don’t have a bullet in your head.’ This was immediately escalated to the highest levels at G-III.”

That’s a big change for G-III and PVH, which traditionally were allies that worked well together and successfully navigated a market that took down bigger rivals like Liz Claiborne Inc. and Jones Apparel Group.

Morris Goldfarb, G-III’s veteran chief executive officer, forged a relationship with PVH’s former CEO Manny Chirico over more than two decades, building a business that ultimately produced a combined $16 billion in North American wholesale sales for the two brands.

But when Stefan Larsson took the reins as CEO at PVH in 2021, he moved to change strategies leading PVH to declare it was going to take back its licenses.

It was no small move as Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein accounted for over half of G-III’s business at the time.

As PVH focused on building a more unified operating structure for the brands, G-III sought to make up the sales it was losing by signing new licenses, building up its Donna Karan and Karl Lagerfeld businesses and more.

That public peace was broken when G-III sued for breach of contract, arguing it had the right to extend the women’s suits licenses for another three years. PVH responded late Tuesday, filing a motion to dismiss the case, arguing that G-III is looking to “impose new obligations” that the licenses don’t provide.

The company — technically two of its divisions — gave PVH’s side of the story in its own breach of contract suit filed against G-III, charging that its longtime partner “refused to align its strategy” for the Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein licenses to the then-new PVH+ corporate strategy.

“For example, G-III insisted at the time that developing a strong digital business, as contemplated under the PVH+ plan, was not a viable business model in the United States market. G-III also was unwilling to work with the brand owners to evolve the product designs that it developed, many of which were not consistent with the respective aesthetics and brand images,” the suit claimed.

“In late 2022, following much conversation and deliberation and taking into account G-III’s unwillingness to work more collaboratively with the brand owners and ensure greater alignment with the brand aesthetics and target consumers for Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, the brand owners informed G-III that they would need to start taking back the licenses,” it added.

The suit claimed G-III then launched a “systematic campaign to undermine the Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands” that included:

• Lobbying wholesale accounts to not purchase the PVH brands.
• Consolidating showroom spaces and reducing the Calvin Klein assortment.
• Causing the brands to be moved to “smaller, less desirable locations” within stores.
• Siphoning resources away from the licensed businesses and prioritizing its other brands.
• Using looks designed for Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger for other brands, including DKNY and Nautica, which G-III produces.
• And liquidating Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger products in “unauthorized markets.”

The suit contended the PVH side tried to “work collaboratively” as the licensing deals wound down and “repeatedly asked G-III to provide a plan for how it would improve the declining performance of its licensed businesses.”

“Instead of acting like a responsible business and complying with its contractual obligations, not to mention ceasing its and its executives’ abusive conduct, G-III chose to double down on casting itself as the victim by filing a baseless and meritless lawsuit, incredibly accusing the brand owners and PVH of acting unreasonably by refusing to extend further the women’s ‘better’ suits licenses…as was the brand owners’ agreed right,” the suit alleged.

It’s a breakup that might always have been headed for court.

The countersuit said G-III began “threatening to sue PVH, regardless of the merits of such a suit, and one of G-III’s senior executives went so far as to say that G-III ‘didn’t have to be right to sue.’ What G-III refuses to accept is that it is the brand owners — not G-III — who own Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger.”

This is all a long way from the close relationship G-III and PVH long enjoyed — a relationship that might have gotten even closer if G-III had had just a little more branded power earlier.

Goldfarb told WWD last year: “We were negotiating with PVH at one point to possibly combine both companies and their prior CEO, Manny Chirico, cited the fact that we don’t have a chit — the value of a brand as great as the value of the entity that we operated. Without the brand, we didn’t really have much. I went back home and said, ‘You know, maybe he’s right.’”

Now Goldfarb and G-III have taken a decidedly branded turn with DKNY, Donna Karan, Karl Lagerfeld and others.

But as the company moves into that future on its own, it’s dealing with a fallout with its soon-to-be ex.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared his vision on Wednesday for “personal superintelligence,” the idea that people should be able to use AI to achieve their personal goals.

Smuggled into the letter is a signal that Meta is shifting how it plans to release AI models as it pursues “superintelligence.”

“We believe the benefits of superintelligence should be shared with the world as broadly as possible,” wrote Zuckerberg. “That said, superintelligence will raise novel safety concerns. We’ll need to be rigorous about mitigating these risks and careful about what we choose to open source.”

That wording about open source is significant. Zuckerberg has historically positioned Meta’s Llama family of open models as the company’s key differentiator from competitors like OpenAI, xAI, and Google DeepMind. Meta’s goal has been to create open AI models that were as good as or better than those closed models. In a 2024 letter, Zuckerberg wrote, “Starting next year, we expect future Llama models to become the most advanced in the industry.”

Zuckerberg has previously left himself room to maneuver on this commitment. “If at some point however there’s some qualitative change in what the thing is capable of, and we feel like it’s not responsible to open source it, then we won’t,” he said in a podcast last year.

And while many say Llama doesn’t fit the strict definition of open source AI — partly because Meta hasn’t released its massive training datasets — Zuckerberg’s words point to a possible change in priority: Open source may no longer be the default for Meta’s cutting-edge AI.

There’s a reason why Meta’s rivals keep their models closed. Closed models give companies more control over monetizing their products. Zuckerberg pointed out last year that Meta’s business isn’t reliant on selling access to AI models, so “releasing Llama doesn’t undercut our revenue, sustainability, or ability to invest in research like it does for closed providers.” Meta, of course, makes most of its money from selling internet advertising.

Still, that stated viewpoint on open models was before Meta started to feel like it was falling behind competitors, and executives became obsessed with beating OpenAI’s GPT-4 model while developing Llama 3.

Cut to June 2025, when Meta began its public AGI sprint in earnest by investing $14.3 billion in Scale AI, acquiring Scale’s founder and CEO, and restructuring its AI efforts under a new unit called Meta Superintelligence Labs. Meta has spent billions of dollars to acquire researchers and engineers from top AI firms and build out new data centers.

Recent reports indicate that all that investment has led Meta to pause testing on its latest Llama model, Behemoth, and instead focus efforts on developing a closed model.

With Zuckerberg’s mission for introducing “personal superintelligence” to the world — a decided shift from the rivals he says are working on “automating all valuable work” — his AI monetization strategy is taking shape. It’s clear from Zuckerberg’s words today that Meta plans to deliver “personal superintelligence” through its own products like augmented reality glasses and virtual reality headsets.

“Personal devices like glasses that understand our context because they can see what we see, hear what we hear, and interact with us throughout the day will become our primary computing devices,” Zuckerberg wrote in Wednesday’s letter.

When asked about Meta potentially keeping its most advanced models closed, a Meta spokesperson said that the company remains committed to open source AI and said it also expects to train closed source models in the future.

“Our position on open source AI is unchanged,” a spokesperson said. “We plan to continue releasing leading open source models. We haven’t released everything we’ve developed historically and we expect to continue training a mix of open and closed models going forward.”

This article was updated with more information about Mark Zuckerberg’s stance on open AI models.

Third Point lists US Steel as a winner, Kenvue as a loser in Q2

Hedge fund made bets on new stocks, citing expected long-term growth

New equity investments not seen as activist investments

NEW YORK, July 30 (Reuters) - Daniel Loeb's hedge fund Third Point made new bets on convenience store operator Casey's General Stores (CASY.O), opens new tab, mortgage lender Rocket Companies (RKT.N), opens new tab and British events and academic publishing group Informa (INF.L), opens new tab, the billionaire investor told clients on Wednesday.

In a letter to Third Point investors seen by Reuters, Loeb wrote that the firm's flagship offshore fund returned 7.5% during the second quarter, when the new investments were initiated.

The firm also "re-initiated" a position in Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab, reasoning the AI chip giant had been beaten down by tariff worries and recession fears, among other things, earlier in the year but will continue to climb. Its stock price has gained nearly 30% this year.

Third Point bought its stake in Rocket Companies after the company said it would buy home loan service provider Mr. Cooper Group for $9.4 billion. "We view the combination of Rocket and Mr. Cooper as a transformative, synergy-rich merger between two technology leaders in the otherwise parochial and cost inflationary mortgage industry," Loeb wrote. Mr. Cooper's servicing portfolio could feed Rocket's refinancing origination machine.

Casey's General Stores, the third-largest convenience store chain in the United States by store count and the fifth-biggest pizza chain in the country, appealed because its food is consistently good, it manages to retain its staff, and it has done some smart deals to expand its footprint.

"In Casey’s we see a world-class management team with a differentiated mousetrap and a decade of profitable growth ahead of them," the letter said.

Informa, which runs events like investment conference SuperReturn, the Dubai Air Show and the Monaco Boat Show, has a smart Middle East strategy and could have compound earnings at a double-digit rate for many years, Loeb said.

Loeb also described the winners and losers during the quarter, citing his bet on U.S. Steel, which was finally sold to Nippon Steel after months of political and regulatory scrutiny, as one of the firm's top five winners. Among the losers was a bet on consumer health company Kenvue (KVUE.N), opens new tab, which makes Tylenol and Band-Aids, the company in July replaced its CEO, giving investors hope the stock price can now move higher.

What is the point of owning a mansion in Mayfair?

London’s luxury property market has bigger problems than the ‘exodus’ of wealthy non-doms

As a student living in South Kensington, I used to spend hours walking the streets of central London with my pocket-sized A-Z. Quite often, I’d be in search of a new pub; but not always. Sometimes I’d just explore, admiring rows of elegant stucco-fronted houses, and wonder who lived in the dark rooms inside, beyond the glossy black railings — and who would, who could, buy one?

Well, if various newspaper reports are to be believed, it’s not wealthy non-doms any more. Since the rules changed in April, they’ve all hotfooted it to Dubai or Milan or other places that aren’t going to try to levy a 40 per cent inheritance tax on their worldwide assets when they die.

Prices in what estate agents call prime central London have fallen recently — down 3.7 per cent in the second quarter of 2025, compared with the same period last year, according to Savills, an estate agent. Knight Frank says the number of sales of London homes worth £5mn and above were down 15 per cent in the year to June.

The industry has been quick to blame the exodus of the wealthy. But to do so, especially since there are doubts over the numbers leaving, is to miss the forest for the trees.

The fact is, the market for luxury homes in London has been dead for more than a decade.

And why? To answer that, I find myself asking the same question I did as a map-clutching student — albeit with a slightly different emphasis: who in their right mind would buy one?

EuroMillions winners, perhaps; maybe the odd business mogul for whom money has ceased to be a concern. But for everyone else, even if they had the money, it’s not clear how buying a mansion in Mayfair would make much financial sense. What would be the point?

This isn’t a frivolous question. Homes priced at £5mn or more might only make up 0.1 per cent of total residential transactions across the country, but they account for a far higher proportion of the value of properties transacted (4.2 per cent). They also make up a chunk of the stamp duty collected (11.3 per cent); and then there are the professional fees and tax receipts that they generate.

So what is the economic case for buying such a home? Let’s take a real-world example: there’s a 10-bedroom mansion and mews in Mayfair that’s currently listed for both sale and rent. It’s an impressive, imposing home — and, my trusty A to Z informs me, is within stumbling distance of Ye Grapes pub.

But if you paid the asking price of £20mn, you would also pay at least £2.3mn in stamp duty — and that’s as a domestic buyer purchasing a primary residence. For a non-UK resident buying a second home, that sum rises to £3.7mn.

A rounding error for the types of people who buy mansions in Mayfair, right? But if you compare that to the annual asking rent of £570,000, it puts its value into perspective. For the amount a UK-residing owner-occupier would have to pay on the stamp duty alone, they could rent the place for four years. For an overseas buyer who already owns a property, it’s six and a half years.

And what if you’re renting it out? From an investment perspective, you’re looking at a gross yield of just 2.9 per cent: there are clearly other attractive alternatives out there such as gilts — especially once you factor in the costs of renting and void periods (this mansion has been available to rent for a year, by the way).

Low rental yields have been a feature of the top-end housing market for more than 10 years. LonRes data shows the average gross rental yield in central London was 2.6 per cent at the end of 2014; they have risen in the past few years, up to 4 per cent, but this varies by property type. In Mayfair, the average yield is currently around 3.1 per cent.

So, the bigger attraction for investors is wealth preservation and capital growth.

Unfortunately, capital growth has been absent for a decade. Savills says the average value of homes in central London has fallen by 22.4 per cent in nominal terms since its 2014 peak — that’s -45 per cent in real terms. The situation is less severe when you look at what is transacting rather than the whole stock, but it’s not exactly the long-term inflation busting growth that buyers might have assumed they were getting.

The killer blow to London’s luxury market came not, therefore, with the non-dom changes announced during last year’s Budget, but in the stamp duty reforms of a decade before.

Switching from the “slab” system (where a single rate is paid on the whole purchase price) to a “slice” (where successive bands of the purchase price are taxed at increasing rates) in 2014 may have lowered stamp duty costs for the majority of buyers. But for the sale of multimillion pound properties — which naturally are concentrated in a few postcodes in central London — it increased the stamp duty payable, from 7 to 10.3 per cent of the purchase price for a £10mn home.  

The blow took a little time to register: I recall estate agency chief executives were dancing in their offices when the threat of former Labour leader Ed Miliband’s mansion tax was eliminated by David Cameron’s election win in 2015, only for them to be hit the next year by George Osborne introducing the higher rate of additional duty on second and investment homes. Looking back, that might have been the final nail in the coffin for prime central London’s house price growth — but it’s been further hammered down by Brexit and the economic malaise since the vote.

It would be silly to suggest that owning a mansion in Mayfair is entirely without appeal. It’s a trophy home, a symbol of wealth and status and, thanks to its address, it may be a relatively safe option, given the global economic and political insecurity we’re currently experiencing.

Having a mansion as part of your portfolio can also provide cheaper debt than other forms of borrowing, thanks to the ease of getting a loan, even with current mortgage rates. This can be useful for providing emergency liquidity in the form of a mortgage agreed over the weekend to meet your Monday superyacht downpayment — as one homeowner in Belgravia found out last year.

But it’s risky. Despite a decade of falling prices, central London homes remain prohibitively expensive, especially given the broader interest rate environment.

A further damper is the growing number of properties for sale. Data from LonRes, which covers homes listed publicly and off-market, shows the number of £5mn-plus homes available to buy has risen by 68 per cent over the past three years, compared with 26 per cent for the wider central London market — and the number of homes is still rising.

At the least, that will limit future price growth and may even put downward pressure on prices if we start to see more motivated sellers.

As a result, mansions in Mayfair and other parts of central London might be the cheapest they’ve been for over a decade but, with limited prospects for future growth and higher interest rates, most potential buyers appear to think they’re still too expensive.

I don’t get to explore central London as much these days, but I try to keep up with the changes. For example, one of my favourite Mayfair pubs back in the day was the Red Lion on Waverton Street. Unfortunately it closed in 2009 and was converted into a mansion. Given what’s happened to house prices in the area, maybe they should have kept it as a pub.

Germany faces €170bn budget gap despite massive borrowing

Finance minister Lars Klingbeil says deep cuts needed in areas other than infrastructure and defence

Germany’s finance minister Lars Klingbeil has warned that a €170bn budget shortfall poses a “massive challenge” to the ruling coalition even as Europe’s largest economy embarks on a debt-funded splurge to bolster its military and modernise its infrastructure.

In March, Germany relaxed its constitutional borrowing limit to enable increased defence spending and to set up a €500bn special fund for its ageing infrastructure — a historic pivot from Berlin’s traditionally conservative fiscal stance. However, the constitutional rule that limits net borrowing to 0.35 per cent of GDP annually continues to apply to other areas of the federal budget.

Presenting next year’s budget on Wednesday, Klingbeil said Berlin must close a budget hole of €170bn by 2029. As the coalition agreed not to increase taxes, this was likely to require deep cuts across ministries and reforms of the welfare system, he added.

“There is no time to waste,” he said. The 2027 budget alone will have to cover a €30bn gap, “one of the biggest domestic challenges that we have to overcome in the next twelve months”.

“It may seem paradoxical,” said Jens Südekum, an economist who advises Klingbeil. “With the reform of the debt brake, the casual observer may think there’s money for everything, but that’s not the case.”

The looming cuts pose a political risk for the government led by Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has pledged to move from the infighting that plagued the previous coalition.

Merz’s Christian Democrats, which govern with Klingbeil’s Social Democrats with a razor-thin majority of 13 seats in parliament, have lately experienced their first significant tensions since taking office in May.

Earlier this month, the chancellor was forced to delay a parliamentary vote on nominating three supreme court judges at the last minute due to dissent within his own ranks.

In June, Markus Söder, the leader of the CSU, the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, criticised Klingbeil for failing to deliver on electricity price cuts for consumers. In return, Söder secured an early implementation of a campaign promise of offering additional benefits to mothers.

The coalition also agreed to offset revenue losses for municipalities resulting from planned corporate tax cuts, while the finance ministry raised its interest payment forecasts upwards in light of increased borrowings.

The squeeze comes amid persistent uncertainty over Germany’s growth prospects. The export-heavy economy has stagnated over the past five years and is the most exposed to planned US tariffs of 15 per cent on EU goods. Südekum estimates that the tariffs could shave 0.2 to 0.3 points off GDP growth.

A finance ministry official noted that the government’s growth assumptions remained cautious — zero projected for this year, and 1 per cent annually between 2026 and 2029. Some analysts predict that Germany could grow by up to 2 per cent next year thanks to its spending plan in defence and infrastructure and tax cuts aimed at spurring corporate spending.

“The nice solution would be that growth picks up,” Südekum said, adding that it would not be enough to plug the budget gap however.

“Everyone sitting in the cabinet will have to save money,” Klingbeil warned on Wednesday. “I am sure that the finance minister’s popularity will not particularly increase in the next twelve months.”