LONDON — The Hut Group Thursday announced plans to file for an initial public offering, with an equity value of 4.5 billion pounds. The listing will be on the London Stock Exchange’s main market standard listing.
According to the company, if the IPO proceeds there will be a free float of at least 20 percent. The plan also includes an offer of new shares to raise 920 million pounds plus a sale of existing shares.
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The group said the move follows its steady growth trajectory since it was founded in 2004.
In 2019, revenue rose 24.9 percent, reaching 1.1 billion pounds with adjusted EBITDA of 111.3 million pounds, according to the company. It currently employs 7,000 people and has a portfolio of brands including Illamasqua, Espa and beauty e-tailer Lookfantastic.
“The brands we own today give us leading strategic positions in prestige beauty and nutrition, powered by Ingenuity, our differentiated proprietary direct-to-consumer e-commerce solution,” said Matthew Moulding, the group’s founder and chief executive officer. “Ingenuity powers not just our brands but those of many other leading consumer brand owners around the world creating a highly resilient, vertically integrated business with significant growth opportunities.”
Its white label tech business has been inking deals worth over 100 million pounds, developing e-commerce sites for brands including Elemis, Burt’s Bees, Nuxe and By Terry.
“We anticipate substantial future growth and expansion across the beauty industry, which will continue to benefit our brands and our websites. We expect subscription beauty boxes will continue to drive customer acquisition and loyalty, while our own prestige beauty brand portfolio will benefit from premiumisation trends and rapid expansion through increased digital penetration and internalisation,” added Moulding.