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Italy's YOOX Group to merge with Net-A-Porter

Xinhua, April 2, 2015 Adjust font size:

Italian YOOX Group, an Internet retailing partner for leading fashion brands, has entered into an agreement with Swiss Richemont, controlling shareholder of Net-A-Porter, a world's premier online luxury fashion retailer, on the terms of an all-share merger.

The transaction will create an independent leading online luxury fashion retailer worldwide, with a combined 2014 net revenue of 1.3 billion euros (1.4 billion U.S. dollars), a statement from YOOX said earlier this week.

The combination of two highly complementary businesses covering all key geographic luxury markets and customer segments, the statement added, will target more than two million high-spending customers and over 24 million monthly unique visitors worldwide.

YOOX Group will remain listed on the Milan stock exchange and incorporated in Italy, and, at the completion of the merger, will be renamed YOOX Net-A-Porter Group.

"This is a game-changing merger between two pioneering companies that have already radically transformed the marketplace since 2000 and will now shift the industry paradigm once again," Federico Marchetti, founder of YOOX Group and CEO of YOOX Net-A-Porter Group, said.

"Together, we plan to build on our many combined successes and industry breadth to strengthen partnerships with the world's leading luxury brands and harness a significant untapped growth potential," he added.

Following completion, the YOOX Net-A-Porter Group is set to launch a capital increase of up to 200 million euros to fund future growth opportunities and the integration, potentially allow for the entry of strategic investors and retain maximum balance sheet flexibility.

The statement said the board of directors intends to approve the merger plan in the second half of April, while the merger is expected to close, subject to regulatory approvals, in the first half of September.

YOOX Group has established itself amongst the market leaders with multi-brand online stores as well as with numerous monobrand online stores, all of which are powered by YOOX Group.

The group has offices and operations in Europe, the United States, Japan, the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong, delivers to more than 100 countries and regions and posted a consolidated net revenue of 524 million euros in 2014. (1 euro = 1.07 U.S. dollars) Endit