ECCO

ECCO Sko A/S

Type	Aktieselskab
Founded	1963; 54 years ago (1963)
Founder	Karl Toosbuy
Headquarters	Bredebro, Denmark
Key people	Dieter Kasprzak (CEO) Hanni Toosbuy Kasprzak (Chairman)
Products	Shoes
Revenue	1.3 billion Euro (2015)
Number of employees	more than 19,000
Website	ecco.com

ECCO Sko A/S is a Danish shoe manufacturer and retailer founded in 1963 by Karl Toosbuy, in Bredebro, Denmark. The company began with only the production of footwear, but has since expanded into leather production, as well as accessories and small leather goods. ECCO opened its first retail store in Denmark in 1982. ECCO products are sold in 88 countries at 3,060 ECCO shops and shop-in-shops, and at more than 14,000 sales points around the world. The company is family-owned and employs 19,800 people worldwide.

ECCO was established in 1965 by Karl Toosbuy in the small town of Bredebro in southern Denmark. Throughout the 1980s, the company expanded its operations internationally. By 1982, sales reached 1 million pairs of shoes annually. In order to accommodate the increasing demand, additional production was established in Portugal, and under license in Japan and Cyprus. ECCO built its own research and design center, named "Futura", in Denmark in 1996, since 2009 Portugal is the R&D center of ECCO and opened its own beamhouse in Indonesia and tannery in Thailand a few years later. In 1998 the first flagship retail store opened on Oxford Street, in London. By 2000, ECCO owned every step of the production process, from design and leather production to branded retail sales.

ECCO owns tanneries in the Netherlands, Thailand, Indonesia and China. ECCO’s tanneries are among the leading manufacturers of leather to the fashion, sports, and car industries. ECCO has engaged in a research program to reduce the environmental impact of the tanning process. Approximately 80% of ECCO's shoes are produced in its own shoe factories in Portugal, Slovakia, Thailand, Indonesia and China, and 20% under licence in a number of countries including Indonesia, China and India. In 2016 Adidas filed a trademark suit against ECCO in USA Courts.