Biyani buys a 30% stake in Etailer Koovs

Kishore Biyani acquires a significant stake in Koovs.com, a London-based online fashion retailer, marking the latest attempt by India's retail pioneer to break into the e-commerce fashion market following its unsuccessful attempt to buy Jabong.com in 2016 was subsequently acquired by a Flipkart unit.

Biyani's Future Lifestyle Fashion will buy close to 30% in Koovs for around Rs 140 crore and this will make the Future Group the largest shareholder of fashion-based fashion trading company AIM London that sells its home and fashion brands and style of life. some products.
Subject to certain conditions, Koovs will issue 57,876,600 new ordinary shares at a price of 10 pence per share, or 24.8% of the issued share capital, which will earn it £ 5,787,660, Koovs said in a statement. .

Besides Biyani, other famous Koov investors include the British businessman turned politician Lord Waheed Alli, a former president of Asos.com. Alli founded Koovs in 2012.
"Lord Alli is committed to investing £ 1.5m in capital raising and FLFL (Future Lifestyle) has conditionally agreed to make additional investments to take its stake up to 29.9% in the six months following the capital raising "statement Koov said.

"The transaction will be in two phases and will also involve other investors who will make other investments in the entity," ET told a person close to the market. "This will make Future Group the largest shareholder and manager of the entity."

Koovs resorts to fashion from various international brands targeting Indians aged 18 to 34 and about 40% of the company's sales come from its private brands. The company currently has revenues of around Rs 200 crore.

Future Lifestyle is cash-rich after selling 10% stake in May to LVMH Moet Hennessy, a private equity fund owned by Louis Vuitton L Catterton Asia for about Rs 900 crore. The person quoted above stated that Biyani will use the proceeds from the sale of L Catterton to buy the stake in Koovs.

"We like their positioning (Koovs) because they are very selective and we can bring synergies." Online fashion has taken off in India and we think we can make Koov big and viable, "Biyani said. AND. "This gives us a platform to sell our other existing portfolio."

Future Lifestyle markets a portfolio of more than two dozen global and local brands, including Lee Copper, Indigo Nation, Scullers, Clarks, John Miller, Jealoys, CoverStory, ALLL among others and also owns Brand Factory and Central. , a large chain of department stores.

This would be Biyani's latest stab at ecommerce two years after the failure of the acquisition of the internet-based Rocket Internet furniture supplier Fab-Furnish.com in Germany. Last year, Future Group folded FabFurnish after being unable to leverage FabFurnish for its online and offline retail projects with the Home Town furniture and home products chain.