when the family decided instead to sell the company to British athletic footwear giant Reebok. Bruce Katz remained as president for one year before turning over the management to a new Reebok CEO. Saul Katz stayed on as part of the management team until retiring in his 70s. Later Reebok was sold to German athletic shoe pioneer Adidas. On August 3, 2015, Berkshire Partners and New Balance Holding, Inc. completed the acquisition of The Rockport Company from the Adidas Group, and combined Rockport with Drydock Footwear, an affiliate of New Balance, to form a new company called The Rockport Group. Drydock brought with it the Aravon, Cobb Hill, and Dunham brands to the new firm. In December 2017, sources reported that Crescent Capital Group, a major creditor of The Rockport Group, acquired ownership of Rockport from Berkshire Partners. On May 14, 2018, Rockport filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing a "costly and time-consuming separation" from their former owner, Adidas AG. Charlesbank Capital Partners purchased the company out of bankruptcy in July 2018; on July 23, the company's 60 brick-and-mortar retail locations were closed. Products Rockport is credited with popularizing walking as a healthy alternative to running. It invested heavily in design and spent lavishly on marketing to create a strong brand name and carve out a market niche. Rockport also invested in research into the biomechanics of walking to design its shoes. Rockport's first product was the Country Walker, introduced in 1973. On the basis of the company’s subsequent RocSport shoe and those that followed, Bruce Katz is credited by the shoe industry monthly Footwear Plus with creating the "modern-day lightweight and technology-infused comfort shoe concept." Rockport shoes of this period were designed as alternatives to athletic shoes, which were gaining in popularity as all-purpose footwear. Rockport focused on designing shoes that more closely resembled traditional styles, but sought to incorporate the lightness and comfort of running shoes. This development effort leading to the RocSport was "perhaps the first real 'high technology shoe'," according to James A. Phills, Jr., who teaches at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Apple University, Apple Inc.'s in-house business management school. In 1984, Rockport sponsored an 11,600-mile walk across the country and traversing every state to promote walking as a popular form of exercise. Company-sponsored walkers participating in “Walk for the Health of It” included Robert Sweetgall, whose books helped popularize walking for