The French company that owns fashion powerhouses Sandro, Maje and Claudie Pierlot may be worth more than $2.4 billion in total.
A source close to the company told the Business of Fashion that Paris-based SMCP recently filed documents to register itself in the Paris stock exchange. The net worth of the company could equal $2.4 billion, the source revealed; its valuation before taxes, interest and depreciation could be up to 13 to 16 times more.
Filing the documents is an important first step before releasing an initial public offering, the first company stock that is released for the public to buy. SMCP, which is based in Paris but owned in large part by the Chinese Shandong Ruyi textile company, also reported that total sales were up 16% over the last year.
“Any apparel company with a net worth of $2.4 billion is well capitalized,” Ronald Friedman, a retail expert at Magnum advisory firm, told Footwear News.
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Sandro, Maje and Claudie Pierlot all built their brands around selling a playful, Parisian style inspired by the city’s bohemian Left Bank. All three brands, which are part of the “affordable luxury” movement, sell dresses for approximately $400 and shoes for approximately $300.
By comparison, The Kooples, which produces clothes with a similar Parisian aesthetic, was worth approximately $12 million by 2017. As one of the world’s top athletic shoe producers, Nike was worth $19 billion as of 2014.
Jan Rogers Kniffen, another retail analyst specializing in brand investment, also told Footwear News that “certainly owners would be happy with a valuation at $2.4 billion.”
