Athletic apparel maker Fabletics is launching its first denim collection, signaling the once hot athleisure category is starting to slow down, the company announced Tuesday.
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The collection, launching online and in select stores on Thursday, will include 11 styles and seven washes across both women’s and men’s. Items will be priced between $79.95 and $174.95, depending on whether shoppers are members of Fabletics’ subscription program.
“We’ve had over a million of our customers tell us that if Fabletics offered denim, they’d be highly interested in it, and that’s really what got us started on our journey of expanding into the denim category,” Fabletics co-founder and CEO Adam Goldenberg told CNBC in an interview. “We do believe denim is on an upswing. We’ve seen that, you know, we started [looking into denim] over two years ago, so it’s the right time.”
Fabletics, which earned more than $1 billion in revenue last year, is expanding into denim as consumer preferences change. The “soft” type of dressing that became popular during the pandemic, featuring comfortable joggers, sports bras and hoodies, has fallen out of favor with some shoppers.
Instead, as hybrid work begins to fade, many consumers are choosing to dress back up again and are opting for denim over leggings as the casual staple that works both on the weekends and at the office.
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Fabletics denim.
Courtesy: Fabletics
While the athleisure market is still expanding, that rate of growth has wobbled in North America, data from market intelligence company Euromonitor International show.
The sports apparel market is projected to grow 2.3% in North America in 2026 from 2025, down from 3.1% between 2023 and 2024. Meanwhile, the denim market is expected to grow 2.1% this year, up from 0.7% between 2023 and 2024.
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Globally, the athleisure market grew 2% last year while the denim market grew 4%, according to separate figures from GlobalData.
“What we found coming out of the pandemic is like, comforts become king,” said Goldenberg. “So even now, as consumers are, I would say, dressing up more they’re still wanting to do it in a way that feels good and is more comfortable, right? And we heard that very loudly from our customers when we were developing denim.”
The U.S. has fallen in and out of love with denim for decades, which has plagued fashion and led major apparel companies like Levi Strauss, American Eagle and Gap to structure their businesses so they’re not as exposed to changing styles. Each company is a market leader in denim, but they also have their own athleisure brands, which shields them from shifts in fashion.
Changing trends have proven more difficult for niche players like Lululemon, which boomed during the pandemic and is now falling behind as denim reigns supreme again.
Lululemon has worked for several years to expand outside of its core yoga pant assortment into more lifestyle categories, including outerwear, T-shirts and made for work trousers, as fashion preferences shifted. The move has allowed Lululemon to increase its total addressable market, but some critics have said it’s alienated Lululemon’s core customers and contributed to a slowdown in growth in the retailer’s core Americas market.
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Nike‘s former CEO John Donahoe grew the retailer into a roughly $50 billion brand by focusing on lifestyle and streetwear styles. While the strategy briefly led to growth, it ultimately contributed to a decline in market share because it distracted the company from its core, performance assortment. Now, Nike’s new CEO Elliott Hill is working to refocus the brand on sports to win back that core, athlete consumer.
Goldenberg disagreed that Lululemon’s challenges came from expanding into new categories and instead said Fabletics, along with up and coming private athleisure brands Alo Yoga and Vuori, are taking market share from incumbents. He also said Fabletics’ expansion isn’t coming at the expense of innovation in its core athleisure products, either.
“All these category expansions need to be ‘and’ and not ‘and or’ right?” said Goldenberg. “So we need to be doubling and tripling down on our innovation and activewear while we make sure that we’re launching denim in a way that, like, is truly the best product out there.”
He added that Fabletics has already proven it can successfully scale into new categories, which has helped the company get ahead of schedule two years into its five-year plan of doubling revenue and quadrupling profits. In 2020, it launched a men’s category, which is now more than a $300 million business, and its scrubs line, which has grown to $75 million in a little over two years.
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Goldenberg said activewear is still Fabletics’ main priority, but category expansion will be critical in winning more sales from its current customers and acquiring new shoppers.
“I’ll give you scrubs as an example,” said Goldenberg. “We’re now bringing in thousands of new customers a month into the Fabletics family through them. First purchasing scrubs, but within 90 days, well over 50% of them have also purchased activewear.”
The County Durham offshore engineering group says it is seeing positive signs
Offshore technicians assembling Tekmar’s patented TEKLINK cable protection system during offshore installation on an offshore wind farm(Image: Unknown)
Offshore energy group Tekmar says it is encouraged by its latest results, despite seeing a drop in revenues and another year of losses.
The County Durham-based firm, which provides asset protection technology and offshore energy services, has released results for the year ending September 30 2025.
They show turnover falling slightly to £28.7m, while gross profit fell to £9.8m. After taking into account exceptional items, depreciation and other costs, Tekmar reported an overall loss for the year of £3.9m, though this was less than last year’s losses.
But Tekmar said that £43m of new orders since last July and currently had a record order book. It said its balance sheet had been strengthened, including by the sale of its former Innovation House building for £2.8m.
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The company said its Project Aurora plan to scale the business through both organic growth and acquisitions, and to improve its financial strength, was progressing well.
CEO Richard Turner said: “FY25 has been a pivotal and highly productive year for Tekmar as we launched and started to execute on Project Aurora. The group delivered results in line with market expectations, alongside a material improvement in profitability in the second half.
Richard Turner, CEO Tekmar Group plc(Image: Tekmar Group plc)
“We are pleased to have been able to maintain our momentum post period end – in the first four months of FY26 we have delivered a record order book, with multi-year visibility and have unlocked further growth potential by significantly strengthening our balance sheet.
“We are encouraged by the strong start to the new financial year and healthy pipeline we see ahead of us and are focused on delivering sustained, profitable growth and enhanced value for shareholders.”
Cardiff-based Amber Energy Solutions had been experiencing cashflow problems
Generic energy usage statement
Cardiff-based energy management consultancy Amber Energy Solutions has collapsed into administration resulting in nearly 140 staff being made redundant. The business provided energy consultancy and data services to multi-site property portfolios, landlords and infrastructure operators across the UK.
Amber Energy, which traded strongly in 2024, experienced cash flow challenges and a decline in revenues through 2025.
Matt Whitchurch and Jonathan Dunn of specialist business advisory firm FRP were appointed joint administrators.
Prior to appointment FRP said it undertook an accelerated marketing process to explore options for the business and its assets. While there was initial interest from a number of parties, only limited asset sales were ultimately achievable. A solvent sale was explored, but did not proceed after interested parties withdrew.
Immediately following their appointment, the joint administrators completed the sale of certain assets.
However, the sale did not provide for the transfer of the wider workforce and 138 of the company’s 143 employees have been made redundant. The joint administrators are supporting those affected with claims to the Redundancy Payments Service.
Mr Whitchurch, partner at FRP, said: “Amber Energy Solutions had established a well-regarded offering in its sector but was unable to overcome sustained cash flow pressures.
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“We explored options to secure a wider going concern solution, however this was not achievable in the circumstances. While sales of certain assets have been completed, the majority of roles have unfortunately been made redundant.
“Our focus now is on supporting employees through the claims process and working to maximise recoveries for creditors.”
Its last published financial accounts with Companies House, for its l 2024 financial year, showed the business experienced a strong rise in revenues on the previous year from £9.51m to £11.43m. It also posted a rise in profit to £1.51m.
The business was set up in 2009 by Nicholas Proctor. It had featured in the Wales Fast Growth 50 initiative, an annual league table of the fastest-growing indigenous firms in Wales based on revenue growth.
Leading exchange NSE has directed its members, including brokers and sub-brokers, to disclose and remit any excess Securities Transaction Tax (STT) collected but not deposited with the government for the financial year 2023-24 and earlier periods.
In a circular issued on March 10, the exchange said the move follows directions from the Income Tax Department, which flagged instances where excess STT collected by some market intermediaries had not been remitted to the government account.
STT is a tax levied on transactions executed on recognised stock exchanges and is collected by brokers at the time of trading before being deposited with the government.
According to the circular, the Joint Commissioner of Income Tax, Range 7(1), wrote to the exchange on March 5, advising it to draw attention to the issue and seek details from members who may have retained excess STT.
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Following the instruction, NSE has asked all members to furnish details of such excess STT collected and retained with them for FY24 and preceding years. These details must be submitted directly to the exchange.
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The exchange has also instructed brokers to remit any excess STT collected along with interest calculated at 1% for every month of delay. The funds must be paid to NSE immediately, after which the exchange will deposit the amount into the government account. Members have been asked to comply with the directive within seven days from the publication of the circular.Also read |Everyone selling IT stocks after record crash, but this Rs 1.3 lakh crore mutual fund doing the exact opposite
The communication is a continuation of an earlier circular issued on March 19, 2025, which dealt with excess STT retained by members for FY23 and earlier years.
STT forms an important part of the tax framework governing equity and derivatives trading in India. The levy is applied across a range of market transactions including equity delivery trades, intra-day equity trades and derivatives contracts.
While brokers are responsible for collecting the tax from investors at the time of trade execution, they are required to deposit the amount with the government through the exchange system. Any delay or discrepancy in remittance can attract penalties or interest liabilities under tax rules.
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NSE said members seeking clarification on the circular can contact its taxation department.
(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)
The headquarters of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in Silver Spring, Maryland, Nov. 4, 2009.
Jason Reed | Reuters
The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved a decades-old prescription vitamin called leucovorin as the first treatment for a rare genetic disorder in certain adults and children.
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The move comes months after the Trump administration touted leucovorin as a potential therapy for a broader group of patients with autism spectrum disorder symptoms. The claim sparked skepticism among some in the medical and research community, but fueled excitement among families, spiking prescriptions of the drug in the U.S.
One FDA official told reporters Monday that “we don’t have sufficient data to say that we could establish efficacy for autism more broadly” but said the agency is open to interest from companies in studying leucovorin in the autism population.
The medication, also referred to as folinic acid, is a synthetic form of vitamin B9 that has been used to treat the toxic side effects of chemotherapy. Just a handful of small trials have suggested that leucovorin could be effective as an off-label treatment for children with autism, and some families have reported that it helped their nonverbal kids develop more language and social skills.
FDA officials, who requested anonymity to discuss the decision, told reporters Monday that they started with a broad review of leucovorin as an autism treatment before narrowing its approval to a smaller population with cerebral folate deficiency, a rare genetic mutation that prevents folate – a key vitamin – from properly reaching the brain.
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The condition shares overlapping features with autism, typically develops in young children under age 2 and can cause severe developmental delays, seizures, a lack of muscle control and other serious neurological complications.
The officials said the FDA found that using leucovorin in patients with that condition produced the “highest quality data” to support an expanded approval, which will apply to both generic versions of the drug and GSK’s old branded medication, Wellcovorin.
“That was the data where we saw the largest effect sizes,” one FDA official said on the call. “So we narrowed in on that population, just because we felt like that was the strongest both scientific rationale and also the largest treatment effects that could be used to then overcome some of the limitations in the data sources.”
The approval was based on a systematic review of published literature on the area, including patient case reports, but not a randomized controlled clinical trial. The same official acknowledged there can be biases with systematic reviews, but emphasized that the treatment effects were so large that they outweighed those concerns.
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The FDA is encouraging existing manufacturers of leucovorin to increase production to match higher demand for the drug, the officials added. While GSK originally marketed the drug from 1983 until 1997, the company said in September that it has no plans to relaunch and manufacture the product itself.
In a release Tuesday, Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, acting director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said the approval demonstrates the FDA’s commitment to “rapidly identifying effective treatments for ultra rare diseases while maintaining the same evidentiary standards for approval.”
U.S. President Donald Trump bought more than $1.1 million of Netflix bonds over the last three months as the streaming giant unsuccessfully fought Paramount Skydance to buy Warner Bros Discovery, according to government disclosures.
Trump bought more than $500,000 of Netflix’s bonds in two transactions on December 12 and December 16 and another more than $600,000 across two more trades on January 2 and 20, the disclosures show. The White House disclosed a range, rather than exact amounts, of between just over $1.1 million and $2.25 million.
The purchases came as the Republican president and his regulatory officials talked Netflix down in the press, calling into question whether the deal would withstand antitrust scrutiny and pressuring Netflix to fire board member Susan Rice, a onetime aide to Democratic former President Barack Obama. It’s unclear whether he made or lost money on Netflix’s bonds, which paid an interest rate of 5.375% and are due in November 2029, since the filing doesn’t disclose if or when he sold the bonds. Trump, like other U.S. presidents, is exempt from conflict-of-interest laws that prohibit other executive branch officials from investing in companies with business before the government. He is believed to have bought the bonds through a trust managed by his kids.
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“President Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children,” said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly. “There are no conflicts of interest.” The deal, which would have left the combined company with about $85 billion in debt, immediately put pressure on Netflix’s bonds. They were trading at $1.03 and $1.04 on the dollar when he bought them on December 12 and 16 and at $1.04 and $1.03 on the dollar for his second round of purchases on January 2 and 20, according to data compiled by LSEG. They were recently trading at $1.04 on the dollar on February 26, the day before Netflix withdrew its bid for Warner Bros, but have since moved back to $1.03 on the dollar as of Friday.
Trump also purchased between $500,002 and $1 million in Warner Bros bonds in two trades on December 12 and December 16 that were trading at 91.75 cents and 92 cents on the dollar when they were purchased and are now worth 95 cents on every dollar. If he held on to those bonds, they would be in the money now.
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Trump started calling into question the viability of the merger with Netflix days after it was announced on December 5, telling reporters the concentration of market power “could be a problem.”
Paramount, which is run by the son of Trump ally and Republican megadonor Larry Ellison, took its hostile takeover public on December 8, kicking off a bidding war between the two companies. Ellison personally guaranteed more than $40 billion, backed by his shares in Oracle, to help seal the deal.
Netflix bowed out of the bidding after Paramount came in with a winning $110 billion offer about two weeks ago. The Paramount transaction will be backed by $39 billion in new debt provided by Bank of America, Citigroup and Apollo, according to the companies’ Feb. 27 announcement.
The latest U.S. Office of Government Ethics disclosures, dated February 27, were posted online last week.
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Trump, a real estate investor, has reported more than $1 billion in assets on prior forms. He maintains business interests spanning crypto, golf clubs and other licensing deals. Trump’s investments in companies that his administration oversees could raise ethical concerns.
I run my own boutique law firm, focusing on investment transactions and disputes. Trained at top U.S. law schools and leading Wall Street law firms, I write here primarily to sharpen my own thinking and to engage with my followers. I endeavor to respond to any substantive comments on my articles. My goal is to identify potential 5–10 baggers at the small- and mid-cap stage through careful fundamental analysis of businesses, financials, and valuations. I focus on early-commercial-stage life sciences companies, insurers, homebuilders, and select consumer-facing businesses. If an article of mine fails to make an intelligent 8th grader understand its thesis, I will skip that opportunity.
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