Yahoo Finance Online furniture store Made.com to raise £100m in London listing
London's IPO boom continues as furniture store Made.com looks to be the latest to announce plans to float on the stock exchange, with the aim of raising £100m ($141m). It is expected to be valued at around £1bn.
Made believes its e-commerce platform can benefit from the shift to online shopping, and as more consumers look to spruce up their living spaces, with more working from home.
It wants to use the funds to develop growth in existing markets, improve customer service, scale its homeware range and give the group increased working capital flexibility.
“The business is fast growing and we have demonstrated the capacity of our brand and customer proposition to travel well," said CEO Philippe Chainieux.
“Around half of our sales are outside of the UK and we are aiming to be the leading home destination in Europe for the digital native,” he added.
The upmarket furniture store was co-founded by high-profile tech entrepreneur Brent Hoberman, who also c-founded Lastminute.com.
Publishing financial data for the first time, Made said gross sales for the year ended 31 December 2020 were £315m, while net revenue was £247m.
Made sells its products across the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands via its online platform.
Read more: IPO boom powers London Stock Exchange to best first quarter in 15 years
In the three months ended 31 March, about 48% of gross sales were generated from customers in Europe and the rest from the UK.
It said it launches nine new collections on average every week, partnering with over 150 established and up-and-coming designers and artists.
It believes it has a “large, active and loyal customer base,” with around 1.2 million active customers.
The company's business model is centred around a “flexible asset-light supply chain,” vertically integrated across all functions and processes, covering the entire product lifecycle from product development and sourcing through to shipping, warehousing and home delivery.
It said the global furniture and homeware market for both online and offline is currently estimated at £504bn, of which £151bn is attributable to Europe.
“The homeware and furnishings category is well-positioned for growth given rising penetration rates and high forecasted growth, making it one of the most attractive sectors with significant potential in the retail space,” Made said.
It added it is “well-positioned to take advantage of the structural tailwinds driving the online furniture and homeware market, including sector consolidation, increasing focus on sustainability, working from home, and millennials entering their core home formation years.”
Made is the latest big name that will IPO this year. Notable floats of the past few months include Dr Martens (DOCS.L), Moonpig (MOON.L), review website Trustpilot (TRST.L) and Deliveroo (ROO.L).
‘’Timing is everything for an IPO and Made.com is launching onto the market aiming to capitalise on the accelerated shift to e-commerce and the high demand for home makeovers witnessed over the pandemic," Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, told Yahoo Finance.
"E-commerce sites in particular are seizing the moment, with The Hut Group the first out of the traps in London with a hugely successful IPO in August 2020. Moonpig’s positioning as an e-commerce platform rather than an online card retailer helped its shares fly as it launched onto the market at the beginning of February."
However, she pointed to recent data from the Office for National Statistics that show spending on "delayable goods like furniture has waned a little since the big spending spurt in April."
There is also plenty of rivals in the online furniture space, with Dunelm and DFS likely to continue to be tough competition," she said.
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