Online fashion retailer to replicate Boohoo success with float?
The owner of Manchester-based online fashion retailer Missguided is reportedly considering the sale of the company or a stock market listing.
Founder Nitin Passi, 34, is considerng following in the footsteps of online fashion giant Boohoo.com, another Manchester business which has grown to have a market capitalisation of around £2bn since it listed on the stock market in 2014.
He has appointed Rothschild to advise on a review of its options.
The review is likely to lead to an effort to bring in outside investors in 2018 or 2019, according to Sky News.
Missguided sales increased 34% to £117m for the year to March 2015, but are understood to have grown considerably since then.
The retailer opened its debut physical store at Westfield Stratford in east London late last year, with a second store to open in Kent and two more planned.
The timing of the news of a potential public flotation could be better for Misguided – it emerged as the company was named in a Sky News investigation into real animal fur being sold on British high streets despite being labelled as fake.
Missguided said it was “launching an internal investigation with the relevant suppliers”.
“Missguided does not condone the use of fur in any of its products, therefore we take the allegations… very seriously,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
Back in January, it was revealed that workers making clothes for both Boohoo and Missguided as well as New Look and River Island were being paid between £3 and £3.50 – less than half the UK minimum wage
A reporter from Channel 4’s Dispatches went undercover as a prospective employee at United Creations, which made garments for Boohoo and Missguided and at Fashion Square which makes clothes for River Island and Fashion Square which supplies New Look.
