Member Article

Retailer New Look in predicted £2 billion floatation

High street retailer New Look is rumoured to be working on a stock market listing that could value it at as much as £2 billion.

Sky News has reported that the fashion retailer has recruited bankers at JP Morgan, the Wall Street investment bank, to work on options for a flotation.

The move is fuelling rumours that New Look is actively preparing to go public five years after it aborted an identical move.

JP Morgan is working alongside Goldman Sachs, which is working with New Look to identify other potential investors for the company.

The chain, which trades from more than 800 stores in 21 countries around the world, is the UK’s second-biggest women’s value clothing and accessories retailer, according to Kantar Worldpanel, a research firm.

It now has nearly 20 shops in China although it retreated from Russia and Ukraine because of continuing instability in the two countries.

New Look has been owned since 2004 by Apax and Permira, two private equity firms, along with Tom Singh, its founder.

According to third-quarter financial results released last week, New Look saw like-for-like sales in the UK declined by 1%, a dip that it attributed to unseasonably warm weather.

Anders Kristiansen, its chief executive, described New Look’s trading performance as “robust…against a challenging backdrop”.

“It was a record online sales performance over the Christmas period with all channels well-prepared for peaks in demand around Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Boxing Day, whilst our high street presence came into its own as we handled a surge in demand for our Click & Collect and Order in Store offerings,” he said.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .