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Superdry co-founder and chief executive Julian Dunkerton is exploring the possibility of taking the embattled retailer private and is in discussions with a number of potential financing partners.
“These discussions are at a preliminary stage and no decisions have been made,” said Superdry on Friday, after reports of a potential takeover caused its shares to jump more than 90 per cent in morning trading.
The retailer said Dunkerton was looking at several options for the company, including making a cash offer for the shares he did not already own.
Dunkerton, who owns about a quarter of the business, according to Bloomberg data, denied speculation that he planned to take the company private in February last year, after increasing his stake on a number of occasions.
The retailer, launched on a Cheltenham market stall by Dunkerton in 1985, listed on the London Stock Market in 2010 in an initial public offering valuing it at £400mn. Its popularity was once boosted by unsolicited celebrity endorsements from the likes of footballer David Beckham and singer Shakira.
But in recent years it has been hurt by a cost of living crisis that hit customers’ spending power, reporting in September a pre-tax loss of £78.5mn in the year to the end of April, compared with a £17.6mn profit in the previous year.
Superdry shares had lost almost 90 per cent of their value over the past year before Friday’s slight resurgence brought that figure to around 70 per cent. The company is currently trading at a market capitalisation fluctuating around the tens of millions of pounds.
Oasis Management, the Hong Kong-based hedge fund that led a successful activist campaign pushing for a sale of Wagamama owner The Restaurant Group last year, owns a roughly 9 per cent stake in the retailer, according to people familiar with the matter. Oasis last raised its position at an equity offering in May last year.
Oasis, Superdry’s biggest institutional investor, has previously supported Dunkerton’s plans for the struggling retailer, having backed his six-month battle to return to the company in 2019, which prompted the rest of the board to resign.
Superdry is separately working with advisers to weigh up various cost saving plans, according to an earlier update from the company this week.
In an attempt to strengthen its balance sheet, the troubled UK fashion retailer borrowed £80mn from Bantry Bay Capital last year before securing a further £25mn from specialist retail investor Hilco, which had also lent Wilko £40mn before the discount chain collapsed.
In October Superdry also announced that it had sold its south Asian intellectual property assets for £40mn as part of a joint venture deal with Reliance Brands, India’s largest retailer, to further shore up its balance sheet.
That followed a similar sale of its intellectual property rights in the Asia-Pacific region for £34mn to South Korea’s Cowell Fashion Company earlier in the year.
