END. promised it would be going big on its 20th anniversary celebrations and judging by the fashion retailer’s itinerary of events it’s actually huge.

With three events already under its belt in the January-March period, there are over 20 in the pipeline for the rest of the year involving a programme of curated events, pop-ups, activations, collaborations and partnerships “crafted hand-in-hand with brand partners who have journeyed with END. over the last 20 years”.

Participants include a host of big brands including A Bathing Ape, Adidas, Aries, CP Company, Crocs, Needles, Puma, Salomon, Stone Island, Umbro, Universal Works, Y-3, “and many more”.

It’s all in recognition of a brand that has grown from an independent in Newcastle to an international name with flagship locations in Newcastle, Glasgow, Manchester, London, and Milan, “defining its position as a trailblazer bridging the gap between luxury and streetwear, balancing exclusivity with accessibility with its signature curation of the world’s biggest brands to the most sought-after emerging labels all under one roof”.

The 20th anniversary will also honour the brand’s North East roots and the best of British subculture “focusing on narratives deeply connected to the retailer’s heritage, customers and cultural influences, touching on nostalgic themes from the coast to the corner shop and nightlife to the classic British pub”.

Global threads manufacturing giant Coats Group is quitting its US Yarns business, resulting the closure of its Performance Materials (PM) facility based in Kings Mountain, North Carolina. 

It comes after a strategic review of the wider Americas yarns business that has already resulted in the closure of the Toluca, Mexico facility in December. The review, which started in Q4 2024, concludes that the Americas Yarns business doesn’t fit with Coats’ future strategy, noting the exit from this non-core operation “will result in a positive annualised impact to both the PM and Group adjusted EBIT margins”. 

The exit process is expected to complete in Q2 and Coats said it anticipates to generate a modest cash inflow, after closure costs, that will “allow management to focus on driving forward and growing other parts of the group’s attractive portfolio.

In 2024, revenues and EBIT for US Yarns was $68 million and $3 million, respectively.

Last month, Coats delivered a trading statement that highlighted “strong delivery, exciting medium-term targets with compounding cash and earnings growth”.

While the business reported a string of positives for the year ended 31 December (total revenues up 8% to $1.5 billion; apparel and footwear revenues up 13%; EBIT up 16%), it also noted that the PM business continued to drag across all North America end markets while there was also structural softness in North American Yarns.

The writing was perhaps on the wall for the future of its US PM ops in a statement that included that its Americas manufacturing footprint had been “right-sized” in Q4 with the closure of the Toluca site “to align to structural softness in North American Yarns [that will] drive immediate margin improvement”.