Tommy Hilfiger has been sold to Phillips-Van Heusen for $3bn (£2bn). Tommy Hilfiger (now 58) will stay with the company as its “principal designer and visionary”. Hilfiger’s current owners, the private equity firm Apax Partners, bought the company four years ago for $1.9bn. An attempt to refloat the business on the stock market was scrapped two years later as the credit crisis spiralled. Two-thirds of its $2.25bn annual sales are now outside North America. Phillips-Van Heusen is doubling in size with the deal. The New York-based company is the world’s largest manufacturer of shirts, with a history that it traces back more than 100 years. It has owned the Calvin Klein designer brand since 2002. It owns 1,000 stores. Not bad for a license!