MILAN — A day after Compagnie Financière Richemont SA revealed its bid to take full control of the Yoox Net-a-porter Group, Renzo Rosso, who has a 5.7 percent stake in the luxury e-tailer through his family-owned Red Circle Investments, complimented founder and chief executive officer Federico Marchetti on “this fantastic operation for the company, which becomes part of a group that has believed and invested from the beginning in what is a strategic business of the future.”
Rosso, founder of the OTB group that controls brands such as Diesel, Marni and Viktor & Rolf, confessed he was “a little sorry because I was the first important partner in Yoox, I saw it grow and evolve under my eyes. It’s yet another beautiful Italian company that passes into foreign hands, but it also proves that Italian entrepreneurship is alive and kicking.”
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Richemont has launched a voluntary tender offer for all ordinary shares of YNAP, and plans to pay up to 2.77 billion euros. Its bid values YNAP at about 5.3 billion euros.
On Tuesday, YNAP shares closed at 37.50 euros, in line with the previous day, when they closed at 37.56 euros after rocketing 24.3 percent, nosing the offer price.
Richemont chairman Johann Rupert said his decision to launch a full bid, at 38 euros a share, which is a 25.6 percent premium compared with Friday’s closing price, stemmed from wanting to strengthen Richemont’s “presence and focus” on the digital channel which, like other luxury groups, it had been slow to embrace although it had been a controlling shareholder of Net-a-porter since 2010.
Marchetti founded Yoox in 2000 and helped spearhead the merger with Net-a-porter in 2015.
The public tender offer will be made through the special-purpose vehicle RLG Italia Holding SpA a company that is in the process of being incorporated. If the deal goes through, the intention is to de-list YNAP from the Milan Stock Exchange. YNAP would continue to be run as a separate business in the Richemont stable and its headquarters will remain in Italy.