Six candidate buyers for La Redoute

“Three
investment funds, three industrials”

According
to Pinault three investment funds and three industrial groups have shown
interest to take over La Redoute. Those six will have time until the middle of
July to study the books and they can make an offer until September. Pinault is
positive the deal will be done before the end of the year.

The numbers
of the e-commerce company however are not that good: because of the crisis and
bad weather La Redoute is said to have made a loss of about 25 million euro
over the past six months. Less than
two months ago the company announced it was seizing all activities in Germany
and Austria. The French group, which started as a mail-order company back in
1928, can no longer fight off the competition from pure players such as
Zalando.

Unions: “No
takeover by company from sector”

In talks
with the unions CEO Pinault said he is “not expecting a big cheque”, but he did
promise he would personally look into the takeover. The unions urged Pinault to
sell the company to an industrial partner that is complementary, rather than a
company from the sector (e.g. 3Suisses). They fear La Redoute will be
completely gobbled up and that it will eventually disappear.

Following
the recent public offering of Fnac, La Redoute is the final distribution
channel of PPR, which recently changed its name to Kering, that is still
looking for a buyer. Earlier Kering already sold the American and Scandinavian
branch of Redcats and its French chains Vertbaudet and Cyrillus. In the future Kering will focus completely on luxury, sporting goods and lifestyle.