Frasers Group has reportedly approached the investment bank handling the sale of Richemont’s struggling online business Yoox Net-A-Porter (YNAP) with a view to buying it.
As part of the agreement, Skechers will now have a dedicated showroom where buyers from major retailers can readily explore the legwear collections for men, women, and children at ULAC Europe B.V.’s headquarters in Amsterdam and at the showroom in London.
As it explores acquiring YNAP, the UK retail firm is rumoured to have met with Goldman Sachs, and according to sources, the two are negotiating a non-disclosure agreement.
For the YNAP unit, which has been having trouble for years, Richemont has announced yet another decline in sales. It had previously reached an agreement with Farfetch to take it on, but that agreement was destroyed by the latter’s personal issues. Since then, efforts have been made to sell it, but the company is still classified as a discontinued operation in its accounts.
There are worries, meanwhile, that this may mean Frasers takes over and closes down significant portions of the company, which includes well-known in-season webstores Mr. Porter and Net-A-Porter, as well as luxury outlet e-stores Yoox and The Outnet.
Frasers has already used this strategy. After purchasing Matches for just over £50 million in late 2018, it placed the business into administration three months later, and as of right now, Matches is permanently closed.
Overall, YNAP is a far larger and more well-known company than Matches, and thanks to the THG partnership, Frasers can take advantage of the cutting-edge fulfilment technology provided by THG’s Ingenuity division. YNAP would also include some significant backend technology.
Through its purchased MySale business, Frasers is already involved in outlet sales, and an in-season company such as Net-A-Porter is a major player in the global luxury e-tail market — far more so than Frasers’ own luxury firm, Flannels.com.
