About You The Management Board and Supervisory Board welcome the strategic transaction, which brings together two founder-led teams with a strong cultural fit, entrepreneurial track record and highly complementary capabilities. Subject to the review of the offer documents published by Zalando, the management board and supervisory board of you intend to recommend the acceptance of the offer to the shareholders. About you Three founders and board members Sebastian Betz, Tarek Müller and Hannes Wiese have committed to accept the offer and continue their successful work in their current roles.
About you major shareholders Auto Group, Auto Family, Heartland and about you management have entered into binding agreements to sell your shares in them, which represent approximately 73 percent of your share capital, to Zalando either by accepting a public offer or separately.
Zalando will acquire About You in a strategic merger to enhance its B2C and B2B offerings, covering the majority of Europe’s fashion market. About you The founders and original shareholders are behind this agreement. The partnership targets €100 million ($105 million) in annual EBIT adjustments and plans to close by summer 2025, pending regulatory approval. Zalando offers €6.50/share, a 107 percent premium to the 3-month average price.
“Redefining fashion and lifestyle shopping by creating the best possible experience for customers and partners has always driven both of our teams. I am excited about how we will be able to cover a larger segment of the fashion and lifestyle market together,” said Robert Jentz, co-CEO and co-founder of Zalando. “In B2C, we can offer customers and brands a different and richer shopping experience. In B2B, our complementary software capabilities, combining Tradebyte and SCAYLE, will create a more advanced e-commerce operating system that enables brands and retailers to manage their multi-channel business in Europe and beyond.”
About You operations add scale and complementary capabilities, and also play into Zalando’s ecosystem strategy, communicated in March 2024, to build a pan-European fashion and lifestyle e-commerce ecosystem, B2C and B2B, to deepen relationships with customers. . Partner transactions bring compelling value creation opportunities that two companies, operating in the same industry, can create by collaborating in a wide range of areas such as B2B, logistics, payments and commercial collaboration. In the long term, Zalando targets significant group EBIT synergies of around 100 million euros annually.
Based on management’s strong belief in the value creation of this transaction, Zalando is confirming its medium-term outlook for the combined group. Zalando, including About You, is expected to grow GMV and revenue at a 5-year compound annual growth rate of between 5% and 10% through 2028. The combined company expects an adjusted EBIT margin in the 6% to 8% corridor in 2028, creating a combined group on a larger scale to deliver significant growth in absolute profits. Together, Zalando and ABOUT You aim to cover a larger share of the 450-billion-euro European fashion market in the long term than previously targeted.
In the B2C growth vector, adding about you will enable Zalando to implement a dual-brand strategy. Each brand will retain its distinct identity while coordinating logistics, payment infrastructure and commercial collaborations. This strategic move will allow the combined entity to provide tailored and individualized shopping experiences to effectively meet the unique needs and preferences of their customers.
Zalando appeals to fashion enthusiasts and therefore differentiates itself by offering an unrivaled selection of over 6,000 lifestyle brands to more than 50 million customers, led by more brands. It excites customers with the best possible quality shopping experience, relating to every part of the customer journey: a high-quality brand assortment, digital experience, sustainable and inclusive brand choice, as well as personalized and localized convenience. Zalando is also building on these high-quality relationships by expanding its role in customers’ lives by turning categories like Sports and Kids & Family into engaging experiences, and by integrating content and data in commerce to deliver personalized inspiration and entertainment.
About you appeal to a young fashion audience and so lead to more style. It celebrates individual style, sets trends and combines shopping with entertainment through live events, interactive formats and social media hosts to create a vibrant fashion community. With a network of over 27,000 content creators, About You offers over 12 million active subscribers access to 700,000 styles from name brands, innovative creators, private labels and unique celebrity collections. Its collaborations with international talents in sports, music, film and modeling have led to 119 exclusive collections for its style-conscious customers.
In the B2B growth vector, About You, the SCAYLE software unit will perfectly complement Zalando’s e-commerce operating system ZEOS, enabling brands and retailers to manage their multi-channel business across Europe within a unified platform, including logistics infrastructure, software and services. There are offers, whether they take place on or off the Zalando platform.
Zalando’s Tradebyte software unit is already helping retailers and brands sell their products through various online marketplaces. SCAYLE is now expanding Zalando’s offering with a bespoke solution to serve brands and retailers with their own webshops and apps, often the most important sales channel for many brands, even those running multi-channel businesses.
SCAYLE is one of the fastest growing global and already highly profitable software-as-a-service commerce platforms. SCAYLE offers tailored enterprise software solutions for brands and retailers across verticals, serving more than 200 stores across Europe and North America with a wide range of features, particularly for the fashion and lifestyle segments.
“We are thrilled to team up with so many brilliant entrepreneurial colleagues and together take Zalando and your relationship success stories to the next level,” said Tarek Mueller, co-founder and co-CEO of About You. “This transaction creates something truly unique, two distinct and independent B2C businesses serving the specific needs of their customers. At the same time, the complementary strengths of B2B businesses will align seamlessly to deliver a comprehensive and optimized offering for clients in logistics, software and services.”
The deal will help the combined group enable positive change for a more sustainable and inclusive future of the fashion and lifestyle industry, aided by its greater scale and heightened relevance for consumers and brands. Both organizations share a long-standing partnership in this field and have jointly launched several initiatives to promote accountability within the fashion industry, such as FASHION LEAP for the Climate and FASHION AGAINST FASCISM. In the future, Zalando and ABOUT YOU will further strengthen their joint efforts to enable their customers to make informed purchasing decisions.
Zalando’s proposed public tender offer of EUR 6.50 per share represents a 12 percent and 107 percent premium to your 3-month volume-weighted average share price of EUR 5.80 on December 10, the median analyst target price for 2024, enabling significant value realization for your existing The transaction is due in the summer of 2025, subject to shareholders receiving relevant regulatory approvals is expected to close.
The offer documents and other information relating to Zalando’s intended public tender offer will be prepared in accordance with the German Securities Acquisition and Takeover Act (Wertpapiererwerbs- und Übernahmegesetz – WpÜG). The offer document will be published after the approval of the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin).
The offer document, once approved for publication by BaFin, and further information will be accessible at the following website: www.the-perfect-fit.de. Zalando is being advised by JP Morgan as financial advisor, Sullivan & Cromwell as legal advisor and FGS Global as communications advisor. About you Deutsche Bank and White & Case are advising on this transaction.
Note: Titles, insights and images in this press release may be modified by Fibre2Fashion staff; Rest of the content remains unchanged.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RM)
About You The Management Board and Supervisory Board welcome the strategic transaction, which brings together two founder-led teams with a strong cultural fit, entrepreneurial track record and highly complementary capabilities. Subject to the review of the offer documents published by Zalando, the management board and supervisory board of you intend to recommend the acceptance of the offer to the shareholders. About you Three founders and board members Sebastian Betz, Tarek Müller and Hannes Wiese have committed to accept the offer and continue their successful work in their current roles.
About you major shareholders Auto Group, Auto Family, Heartland and about you management have entered into binding agreements to sell your shares in them, which represent approximately 73 percent of your share capital, to Zalando either by accepting a public offer or separately.
Zalando will acquire About You in a strategic merger to enhance its B2C and B2B offerings, covering the majority of Europe’s fashion market. About you The founders and original shareholders are behind this agreement. The partnership targets €100 million ($105 million) in annual EBIT adjustments and plans to close by summer 2025, pending regulatory approval. Zalando offers €6.50/share, a 107 percent premium to the 3-month average price.
“Redefining fashion and lifestyle shopping by creating the best possible experience for customers and partners has always driven both of our teams. I am excited about how we will be able to cover a larger segment of the fashion and lifestyle market together,” said Robert Jentz, co-CEO and co-founder of Zalando. “In B2C, we can offer customers and brands a different and richer shopping experience. In B2B, our complementary software capabilities, combining Tradebyte and SCAYLE, will create a more advanced e-commerce operating system that enables brands and retailers to manage their multi-channel business in Europe and beyond.”
About You operations add scale and complementary capabilities, and also play into Zalando’s ecosystem strategy, communicated in March 2024, to build a pan-European fashion and lifestyle e-commerce ecosystem, B2C and B2B, to deepen relationships with customers. . Partner transactions bring compelling value creation opportunities that two companies, operating in the same industry, can create by collaborating in a wide range of areas such as B2B, logistics, payments and commercial collaboration. In the long term, Zalando targets significant group EBIT synergies of around 100 million euros annually.
Based on management’s strong belief in the value creation of this transaction, Zalando is confirming its medium-term outlook for the combined group. Zalando, including About You, is expected to grow GMV and revenue at a 5-year compound annual growth rate of between 5% and 10% through 2028. The combined company expects an adjusted EBIT margin in the 6% to 8% corridor in 2028, creating a combined group on a larger scale to deliver significant growth in absolute profits. Together, Zalando and ABOUT You aim to cover a larger share of the 450-billion-euro European fashion market in the long term than previously targeted.
In the B2C growth vector, adding about you will enable Zalando to implement a dual-brand strategy. Each brand will retain its distinct identity while coordinating logistics, payment infrastructure and commercial collaborations. This strategic move will allow the combined entity to provide tailored and individualized shopping experiences to effectively meet the unique needs and preferences of their customers.
Zalando appeals to fashion enthusiasts and therefore differentiates itself by offering an unrivaled selection of over 6,000 lifestyle brands to more than 50 million customers, led by more brands. It excites customers with the best possible quality shopping experience, relating to every part of the customer journey: a high-quality brand assortment, digital experience, sustainable and inclusive brand choice, as well as personalized and localized convenience. Zalando is also building on these high-quality relationships by expanding its role in customers’ lives by turning categories like Sports and Kids & Family into engaging experiences, and by integrating content and data in commerce to deliver personalized inspiration and entertainment.
About you appeal to a young fashion audience and so lead to more style. It celebrates individual style, sets trends and combines shopping with entertainment through live events, interactive formats and social media hosts to create a vibrant fashion community. With a network of over 27,000 content creators, About You offers over 12 million active subscribers access to 700,000 styles from name brands, innovative creators, private labels and unique celebrity collections. Its collaborations with international talents in sports, music, film and modeling have led to 119 exclusive collections for its style-conscious customers.
In the B2B growth vector, About You, the SCAYLE software unit will perfectly complement Zalando’s e-commerce operating system ZEOS, enabling brands and retailers to manage their multi-channel business across Europe within a unified platform, including logistics infrastructure, software and services. There are offers, whether they take place on or off the Zalando platform.
Zalando’s Tradebyte software unit is already helping retailers and brands sell their products through various online marketplaces. SCAYLE is now expanding Zalando’s offering with a bespoke solution to serve brands and retailers with their own webshops and apps, often the most important sales channel for many brands, even those running multi-channel businesses.
SCAYLE is one of the fastest growing global and already highly profitable software-as-a-service commerce platforms. SCAYLE offers tailored enterprise software solutions for brands and retailers across verticals, serving more than 200 stores across Europe and North America with a wide range of features, particularly for the fashion and lifestyle segments.
“We are thrilled to team up with so many brilliant entrepreneurial colleagues and together take Zalando and your relationship success stories to the next level,” said Tarek Mueller, co-founder and co-CEO of About You. “This transaction creates something truly unique, two distinct and independent B2C businesses serving the specific needs of their customers. At the same time, the complementary strengths of B2B businesses will align seamlessly to deliver a comprehensive and optimized offering for clients in logistics, software and services.”
The deal will help the combined group enable positive change for a more sustainable and inclusive future of the fashion and lifestyle industry, aided by its greater scale and heightened relevance for consumers and brands. Both organizations share a long-standing partnership in this field and have jointly launched several initiatives to promote accountability within the fashion industry, such as FASHION LEAP for the Climate and FASHION AGAINST FASCISM. In the future, Zalando and ABOUT YOU will further strengthen their joint efforts to enable their customers to make informed purchasing decisions.
Zalando’s proposed public tender offer of EUR 6.50 per share represents a 12 percent and 107 percent premium to your 3-month volume-weighted average share price of EUR 5.80 on December 10, the median analyst target price for 2024, enabling significant value realization for your existing The transaction is due in the summer of 2025, subject to shareholders receiving relevant regulatory approvals is expected to close.
The offer documents and other information relating to Zalando’s intended public tender offer will be prepared in accordance with the German Securities Acquisition and Takeover Act (Wertpapiererwerbs- und Übernahmegesetz – WpÜG). The offer document will be published after the approval of the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin).
The offer document, once approved for publication by BaFin, and further information will be accessible at the following website: www.the-perfect-fit.de. Zalando is being advised by JP Morgan as financial advisor, Sullivan & Cromwell as legal advisor and FGS Global as communications advisor. About you Deutsche Bank and White & Case are advising on this transaction.
Note: Titles, insights and images in this press release may be modified by Fibre2Fashion staff; Rest of the content remains unchanged.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RM)
