The spinoff to shareholders should be completed in the first half of next year, Greensboro, North Carolina-based VF said in a statement Monday confirming a report last week from the Wall Street Journal. The jeans business, which has yet to be named, will be based in Greensboro, while VF will move its headquarters to the Denver area.

Sales of denim have slowed as consumers have embraced so-called athleisure clothing. Separating the business will allow management to focus more closely on it, VF said. Scott Baxter, VF’s group president, Americas West, will be chief executive officer of the new company, while finance executive Rustin Welton will be chief financial officer, VF said.

The company said the new jeans company would have annual revenue of more than US$2.5 billion, compared with more than US$11 billion for the rest of VF. The existing company’s faster-growing product lines have driven share-price gains, with the stock up 30% so far this year.

VF, once known as Vanity Fair Mills and founded in 1899 as Reading Glove & Mitten Manufacturing Co., has owned the Lee brand since the 1950s and Wrangler since the ’70s.

Barclays is acting as financial adviser to VF and Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP is acting as legal adviser.