Between 2007–2011 Proventus was the principal owner of the Swedish based, international fashion brand J.Lindeberg. Proventus engagements in the world of fashion had already started one and a half decades earlier, when acquiring the textile company Kinnasand (1992-2004). Taking one of the oldest textile companies in Sweden into the 21st century, gave Proventus a deep understanding of the raw materials, engineering and machinery behind a textile product. This experience evolved while Proventus also owned and were reconstructing the portfolio of the Aritmos group (1993-1996) which contained the notable sports and leisure brands Puma, Etonic, Tretorn, Monark, Stiga and Abu Garcia. These were all strong brands, with their own particular history, and products that stood for a certain quality and style. And as in all of these cases, the key to positive change lay in understanding their past.

After having successfully turned the Italian company Diesel, into one of the hottest denim brands in the world, Johan Lindeberg decided to start his own venture in 1996. The vision was to create a big international fashion house on the same level as Calvin Klein or Tommy Hilfiger. An attitude and goal like that – in a country like Sweden that was nowhere near synonymous with fashion at the time – was highly unorthodox, and it immediately sparked interest. With funds from excited venture capital firms, J.Lindeberg launched and established headquarters in Stockholm and New York. The first collection was released in the fall of 1997 and featured tailored jackets and suits for men, drawing more inspiration from the 1960s and Rock’n’roll than the modernist past and harsh climate of Sweden – which would be the template for many other new Swedish fashion brands that later followed.

Lindeberg was an avid golfer, and he brought his love for the game into the creative process and at the end of 1997 introduced a collection called On Course, consisting of tight fitting and colourful golf wear. The Swedish pro golfer Jesper Parnevik became the first to endorse it and when Parnevik stepped out on to the green wearing his tight and purple J.Lindeberg trousers, the fans and media went wild, and it changed the rules for how golfers dressed from then on. Over the coming years the company expanded fast and the sport bransch of the collection grew to include skiing and swimming wear. Accessories like glasses, hats and belts marked with the strong bridge shaped acronym logo, soon became just as familiar to consumers as the classic logos of French and Italian fashion houses. In 1999 J.Lindeberg had more than 400 retailers worldwide, and flagship stores opened in Stockholm in 2000, followed by London, Tokyo and Los Angeles. In 2002 the first collection for women launched and ties to the Hollywood clientele grew, with superstars like Bono from U2 and the celebrity couple “Brangelina” (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie) wearing J.Lindeberg on the red carpets.

From the very beginning, sales had been struggling to keep up with the expansion but from 2003 and two years forward the company showed profit. The collections became increasingly more gender fluid, and this androgynous look was embraced in 2005 by the new faces of J.Lindeberg; Juliette Lewis of the rock band Juliette and the licks, and by David Gahan, the lead singer of Depeche Mode. The sports branch of J.Lindeberg simultaneously took a new step when they launched a “future sports golf shoe” developed together with the famous – and once Proventus owned – sports brand Puma. Despite the immense attention and the ability to produce goods that resonated with consumers looking for authenticity, J.Lindeberg’s sales started to slump again. In 2007 the company was in a deep financial crisis and the economic strains affected the relationship between its founder and its shareholders. Johan Lindeberg therefore reached out to Proventus which he knew was an investor that respected the design process in creative industries, to explore a new ownership. Proventus not only recognised J.Lindeberg’s unique position on the market but also its history, what the brand had meant for Swedish fashion as a whole. Having also successfully engaged with sport brands before, when owning Aritmos (1993-1996), Proventus truly were a perfect fit for J.Lindeberg and soon became its principal owner.

Proventus brought in Stefan Engström, a seasoned executive in the fashion industry, as the new CEO of J.Lindeberg and began to review and refine its offer, logistics and management. After staying on in various capacities and positions in the company, Johan Lindeberg felt the time was ripe to explore new ideas. Like Jil Sander and Helmut Helmut before him, he in 2009 decided to leave the company that bore his name. The well renowned Italian designer Pierangelo D’Agostin succeeded him, and he began to carve out a new identity for the brand in the following years. In 2011 J.Lindeberg was financially stable and showed profit. What the company now needed in order to grow further was not a financial ownership but an industrial. And Proventus secured this by selling to Bestseller, a Danish family owned umbrella for fashion brands, who enthusiastically pegged up to take a new forceful swing with J.Lindeberg.