BELLE Will Return To The Capital Market At The End Of The Month To Split Sports Business Separately IPO

After two years, BELLE, the highest record of the HKEx privatization, will return to the capital market.

According to Bloomberg's latest news, China's largest shoe retailer, BELLE international control plan, will formally submit its sports business to the IPO application in Hong Kong at the end of this month. It is estimated that the fund-raising will be 1 billion USD or HK $7 billion 800 million.

In April 2017, the executive director of the high Ling group, CDH investment and BELLE Holdings Limited organized a consortium of Wu and Sheng to privatize BELLE group with HK $53 billion 100 million.

In July 27th of the same year, BELLE group formally withdrew from the stock exchange of Hongkong.

In fact, the fashion business bulletin was reported in May last year. Anonymous sources said BELLE group hired the Bank of America and Merrill Lynch to help it break up the sportswear business, aiming to increase the valuation of its agent sales department including Nike and Adidas to 20 billion to HK $25 billion.

Market research firm Ou Rui information consultation estimated that the value of China's sportswear market will increase from 40 billion dollars last year to 58 billion US dollars in 2023. At present, BELLE's share in China's clothing and footwear retail market is 6.7%.

With the warming of the sports market, the domestic clothing and sports brands are actively distributing this field. BELLE group decided to split the sports apparel business at this time.

It is reported that BELLE group not only has 12 own footwear brands, but also agents, such as Nike, Adidas, Puma, Converse and other sports brands and Moussy, SLY and other tide shoe sales business.

By the end of February 2017, the company had 20716 sales outlets, including 13062 footwear and 7654 sportswear and clothing stores.

In the face of problems such as the electricity supplier and its brand aging, the privatization of BELLE group is still expanding its brand matrix, trying to seek younger.

In August last year, it signed the purchase agreement with the luxury luxury shoes brand 73Hours, becoming the controlling shareholder of the latter.

After the completion of the acquisition, 73Hours maintained its brand independent operation.

73Hours was founded in 2015 by Zhao Ruohong.

At the same time, the BELLE group, which started with shoe industry, seems to be optimistic about the clothing market and niche brand incubation business.

According to the fashion business news, BELLE group has entered the small fashion brand initial, but has not disclosed the specific paction amount and equity share.

Initial was founded in 2000, and each store has a very recognizable design concept based on its comfort and simple retro style.

Data show that at present, initial has 105 stores in China, with an annual revenue of 1 billion yuan.

Before the delisting, the Group CEO, Sheng Bai Jiao, admits that the group is facing a critical moment for urgent pformation. In the future, only if the traditional retail mode and the network economy mode are fully integrated, can BELLE maintain its long-term competitive advantage with the new retail strategy, "no pformation will die, and the worst is yet to come".

In April 2018, BELLE group handed over the pcript of the pformation year. In 2017, the group's terminal retail sales totaled more than 50 billion, and the profit before tax depreciation and amortization exceeded 9 billion Hong Kong dollars.

Among them, the footwear business has been declining for 3 consecutive years. The profit and sales estimate of the sports brand business has increased by more than 20%. If 20% is the base, the annual revenue of sports business is about 27 billion 300 million yuan.

Some analysts believe that although sportswear is not the core business of BELLE group, the gross interest rate of the agency model is low and the market competition is fierce, but it has tasted the BELLE with a sweet head, the performance began to warm up, and the full penetration of the high height capital, this once "shoe King" is bound to come back.

What it means is that last month BELLE group and its Best Able Footwear Lizhong Shoes Co., Ltd. were prosecuted by Louis Vuitton, the world's largest luxury brand. This is the first plagiarism lawsuit initiated by Louis Vuitton in China in the past 3 years.

Louis Vuitton, the parent company LVMH, was the cornerstone investor of BELLE international. In 2007, it subscribed $30 million worth of BELLE international stock, when BELLE international financing amounted to US $1 billion 100 million and was able to expand rapidly at 1000 stores annually.

According to the information submitted by Louis Vuitton, the design of a shoe product of BELLE group is very similar to that of Louis Vuitton Archlight sports shoes, and it is emphasized that they started selling Archlight sports shoes in February 2018, priced at 1090 US dollars or about 7300 yuan, which is the owner of the global design trademark copyright, and the defendants' suspected plagiarism shoes were only put on the shelves in July 24, 2018, and the price was only 598 yuan.

As the two defendants were registered in Hongkong, Louis Vuitton requested the intellectual property court of Hongkong to permanently prohibit BELLE's international sales related footwear and destroy it and make compensation at the same time.

Some analysts believe that BELLE group in such a critical period of time such a message, or will cause some negative impact, the spin off listing is facing challenges.