Lululemon's Billionaire Founder Has Been Fighting To Oust Its CEO–He Won, But He’s Still Not Happy |
On weekends during the holidays, there is rarely any breathing room at the Lululemon in Dallas, Texas. It is one of the busiest stores in the high-end mall on Black Friday, filled mostly with teenage girls waving their parents’ credit cards and middle-aged women looking for new pilates outfits. While holiday sales won’t be tallied for a while still, revenue for the retailer is expected to reach a record $11 billion for 2025. In the most recent quarter, North American sales slipped by 2% but overseas revenue surged 33% ensuring an overall increase of 7%.
Lululemon is hardly the crumbling brand that its controversial billionaire founder Chip Wilson continues to deride, years after leaving. But as anyone who has followed Wilson’s ranting knows, things have not been so great lately for the iconic yoga brand and its shareholders. Lululemon’s market cap peaked in December 2023 at $64 billion. Since then, the stock has fallen by 59%, slashing its valuation to $25 billion. That’s why it didn’t come as a complete surprise when Lululemon recently announced its CEO Calvin McDonald will be stepping down in January, or that the announcement—made alongside the company’s strong quarterly earnings—helped send shares up 11%.
Wilson—whose pile of Lululemon shares jumped by $180 million in value, to $2.1 billion, in a day—responded with comments that were both contemptuous and triumphant. “After overseeing years of poor decisions erode the brand and destroy shareholder value,” he wrote in a self-published press release, “it is clear to me that only under my increasing pressure has the lululemon Board of Directors (the "Board") finally started to listen.”
With McDonald out, Wilson appears to have scored a major victory in his long-running battle with his old company, but he isn’t done. Lululemon’s board has not announced a clear succession plan, he says. The business needs to add “refreshed, experienced” directors........