Global Fashion Group prepares IPO

Fashion e-tailer Global Fashion Group (GFG) has announced its intention to conduct an IPO and a listing of its shares on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

The company, which operates e-commerce platforms The Iconic, Zalora, Dafiti and Lamoda, said it intends to raise approximately 300 million euros in the planned offering, and will use the money to “fuel continued growth by investing in the technology platform, customer acquisition, and fulfilment and delivery infrastructure, including automation, as well as other general corporate purposes.” The company said the planned offering is expected to consist only of newly issued shares.

Commenting on the news in a statement, co-chief executive officers, Christoph Barchewitz and Patrick Schmidt, said: “We are excited about this next step for GFG. It is still very early days for fashion and lifestyle e-commerce in our markets. Today, most of our markets have less e-commerce adoption than Europe had 10 years ago.

GFG prepares Frankfurt stock market flotation to fund further growth

The statement continued: “As consumer behaviour migrates towards e-commerce, GFG’s well-known consumer platforms, local teams, and fashion-specific operational infrastructure put us at the forefront of this growth opportunity.” The company added that an IPO will allow it to keep investing in its end-to-end customer proposition to further strengthen its position in growth markets.

GFG’s active customer base increased from 8.9 million to 11.2 million between 2016 and 2018, while net merchandise value (NMV) grew from 1,076 million euros to 1,453 million euros. Over the same period, revenue at the company also increased from 887 million euros to 1,156 million euros.

Following its strong first quarter results, GFG said it now expects NMV to grow by 20-23 percent (on an organic basis) to reach between 1.7 to 1.8 billion euros in 2019. The company also expects to generate more than 1.3 billion euros in revenue and to make additional progress towards EBITDA break-even.

Goldman Sachs International, Morgan Stanley, and Berenberg are acting as Joint Global Coordinators and, together with HSBC, as Joint Bookrunners.

Photo credit: The Iconic, Facebook