19th Jun 2014 06:47
LONDON (Alliance News) - Online sales retailer MySale Group PLC Thursday said it was open to creating a joint venture in Australasia and Asia with its new investor Sports Direct International PLC.
The news comes just a day after Sports Direct, the UK's biggest sporting goods retailer by revenue, bought a 4.8% stake in MySale, and said it wants to work with the fledging online retailer on developing a Sports Direct offering in Australasia and Asia.
Sports Direct Wednesday said it was "looking forward to developing its relationship with MySale, including the potential to co-operate on significant collaboration and joint venture opportunities in Australasia and Asia".
"This partnership approach is consistent with Sports Direct's strategy in other regions and the group believes that MySale is ideally suited to help realise Sports Direct's multi-channel potential in Australasia and Asia," Sports Direct said in its statement Wednesday afternoon.
Newly-listed online retailer MySale said in a short statement Thursday that it was "pleased to have the support of Sports Direct".
"The group looks forward to developing its relationship with Sports Direct, including the potential to co-operate on significant collaboration and joint venture opportunities in Australasia and Asia," the pure-play retailer said.
Sports Direct founder and majority shareholder Mike Ashley joins UK retailer entrepreneur Philip Green on MySale's shareholder register. Green, through his wife, is the second biggest shareholder in MySale.
Online retailer Mysale Group, joined a long list of retailers to float in London in 2014 at the end of May. However, the retailer saw its shares slide below its IPO price as dealings got underway on AIM Monday. The company had priced its IPO at 226 pence, giving it an initial market capitalisation of about GBP340 million. MySale shares closed 2.4% lower at 183.031 pence on Wednesday.
Mysale was launched in Australia in 2007 and has since expanded to New Zealand, southeast Asia, the US and UK. It is a so-called flash sales retailer - once a customer becomes an "exclusive" member, they get access to member-only fashion sales.
It had about 795,000 active members across eleven online sites on May 14, although it had 10.8 million registered members and is adding about 250,000 new members each month.
The acquisition by Sports Direct was the third big strategic investment the sports retailer has made in other UK retailers this year, after buying up stakes in department store chains Debenhams PLC and House of Fraser earlier in the year.
By Rowena Harris-Doughty; [email protected]; @rharrisdoughty
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