(News Bulletin 247) – The Swiss group announced this Monday the sale of Yoox-Net-A-Porter, its luxury clothing and online fashion sales activity to the company Mytheresa. Richemont thus turns the page on a cumbersome file which lasted several years.

Richemont will settle a case which has obstructed its stock market visibility for many years. The Swiss company announced this Monday the sale of its online sales division of luxury and fashion clothing Yoox-Net-A-Porter Group (Ynap), an activity in structural losses.

Richemont has decided to sell Ynap to the German group Mytheresa, also specialized in the online sale of luxury and lifestyle items. The overseas company will add a third flagship brand to its ranks, alongside its eponymous brand Mytheresa and Mr Porter.

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Under the terms of the transaction, Richemont will leave 555 million euros of cash in Ynap’s accounts at Mytheresa. The Swiss group that owns Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels will receive, in exchange for the sale, 33% of the capital of Mytheresa via a reserved capital increase. Finally, Richemont will provide the German company with a revolving credit facility of 100 million euros, for a period of six years.

Ultimately, Royal Bank of Canada calculates that the transaction was made on the basis of a negative equity value of 433 million euros. Closing of the transaction is expected in the first half of 2025.

On the Zurich Stock Exchange, Richemont advanced 1.1% at the end of the morning.

The end of a long file

“This Ynap resolution should allow Richemont to retain some exposure to the online sale of multi-brand luxury goods without operational control and, in the medium term, the possibility of managing its position given that Mytheresa is a listed company on the Stock Exchange”, appreciates Royal Bank of Canada.

Investors have been hoping for a while that Richemont would manage to sell Ynap and move on from this activity, which was no longer considered strategic since 2021 by the Swiss company.

At the beginning of last month, Stifel wrote that Richemont shares should be supported by “upcoming information on the sale of Ynap by the end of the year, as well as its attractive valuation”.

Richemont had already tried to sell Ynap to the online commerce platform Farfetch. Announced in August 2022, this fairly complex transaction – it provided for a sale in two stages – never went through to completion. In December 2023, the two companies gave up on this project.

Richemont then began looking for a new buyer, and thus continued to classify Ynap in the “activity to be sold” category in its accounts. During Richemont’s last financial year, ended at the end of March 2024, Ynap suffered a loss of 1.26 billion euros due to accounting depreciation, while its sales fell by 14%.

Richemont also announced on Monday that the sale of Ynap to Mytheresa would lead it to take a new accounting depreciation amounting to 1.3 billion euros.