New Balance

In an athletic-footwear industry dominated by publicly traded global brands, New Balance Athletics stands distinctively private, family-controlled, and US-manufacturing-anchored. The company is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts and owned by the Davis family, with Jim Davis serving as Chairman and his wife Anne Davis as Vice-Chair following Jim’s acquisition of the business in 1972 from founder William Riley’s family.

Founded in 1906 in Boston by William J. Riley initially as an arch-support company before progressively moving into specialty running shoes, New Balance Athletics retained its family ownership across the consolidation that absorbed essentially every other major US athletic brand. The brand maintains five manufacturing facilities in the United States (Maine and Massachusetts) and one in the United Kingdom, producing approximately 4 million pairs annually under the “Made in USA” and “Made in UK” designations that distinguish the brand’s premium tiers from peer mass-imported athletic footwear. Annual revenue reached approximately $7.8 billion in 2024, with continued double-digit growth driven by the brand’s broader lifestyle adoption beyond pure performance running. The 990 series (introduced 1982), the 574 (1988), the 327 (2020 revival), and the Aimé Leon Dore collaborations across multiple seasons defined the brand’s transformation from a “dad shoe” reputation into one of the most culturally relevant athletic-fashion brands of the 2020s. The renovated Harajuku flagship opened in Q4 2025, anchoring the brand’s continued investment in Japan as a strategic priority market and signaling the broader Asian flagship-led retail strategy. CEO Joe Preston has led the company since 2020. New Balance suspended Russian operations in 2022.

New Balance operates approximately 200 directly operated stores globally, supplemented by extensive wholesale placement in athletic specialty retail, multi-brand sportswear chains, department stores, and the brand’s substantial e-commerce business. The strongest markets include the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, China, South Korea, Germany, and France. For mall operators, New Balance is a Class A specialty athletic-and-lifestyle tenant for regional and super-regional centers, typically taking 200 to 400 square meters in formats emphasizing the brand’s heritage running and lifestyle merchandising. The flagship stores in major fashion-and-athletic markets operate at substantially larger 1,000-to-2,000 square meter footprints, anchoring the brand’s continued strategic investment in destination retail.