Koovs PLC raise $31.9 Mn, Acquire 100% stake in Koovs India

Koovs PLC, a New Delhi and UK based fashion etailer, confirms a capital raise of $31.9 Mn (£21.9 Mn) in a general meeting announcement on Friday. The funding came through the issue of 87.6 Mn New Ordinary Shares at a price of 25 pence per Ordinary Share. This capital raising includes investments from both existing shareholders and new institutional investors including Ruffer LLP.

A part of the capital proceeds will be kept as working capital while some will be used to fund company’s growth. Starting in May, the firm enters into the next phase of its multi-channel marketing campaign, ‘Step Into Koovs’, that will extend to five additional cities. The campaign launched in November last year, made the brand awareness increase from less than 1% to 8% and took web visits to over 1 million per week.

Also, the company has acquired remaining 38.6% stake in Koovs India, its Indian subsidiary, from Infotel E-Commerce Private Limited (“Infotel”), a company controlled by Anant Nahata.  It was an all-cash deal of £9.0 Mn ($13.1 Mn), thereby regularising the Group structure with Koovs India becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company.

As of now, the portal sales are up 210% at INR 29.56 Cr for the quarter ended January 3, 2016 which is from INR 9.55 Cr last year. The shopping cart conversion rate is 1.4 percent and reported 12.7 million visitors to the website.

As per CEO of Koovs, Mary Turner, India’s online fashion market is expected to increase five-fold by 2020, to £1.5 Bn ($2.1 Bn). “This fundraising is a part of our planned growth, and will allow us to continue to build our brand, develop our customer offer, and deliver our strategy to become India’s number one western fashion destination by 2020.”

In 2014, Koovs raised £22 Mn ($32.1 Mn) by offering 24,110,719 ordinary shares of 1 pence each at an issue price of 150 pence each, which represents for 60.8% of the company’s total issued share capital. After deducting underwriting discounts and other expenses, Koovs got round £20.4 Mn from the offering.

The company further claimed to have potential to raise another £8.1 Mn as part of its capital raise at 25 pence per Ordinary Share prior to 30 June 2016.