Spanx founder Sara Blakely.
According to the Wall Street Journal, investment giant Blackstone Group is acquiring a majority stake in women's clothing brand Spanx at a valuation of $1.2 billion.
Founded in 2000, Spanx is best known for designing sculpted underwear. Spanx started as a shapewear and has become a full-category women's clothing brand, including body-shaping underwear, legging, daily wear and swimwear. According to Forbes, the brand's annual sales reached $250 million in 2012, but then the market for shapewear was intensified by the explosion of similar brands such as Honey Love and Kim Kardashian West's Skims on social media. According to sources to Forbes, the brand's sales last year were about $3 million to $4 million. According to the analysis of NPD Group, from July 2019 to July 2020, the overall sales of the plastic clothing market fell by 24%.
But in Blackstone's view, Spanx is a very good investment target, mainly because of Spanx's excellent digital business, and currently 2/3 of the company's sales come from its official website. Blackstone said in a press release that the group believes that by increasing marketing efforts in the future, it will effectively promote the brand's sales growth. In addition, Once the acquisition is complete, Spanx founder Sara Blakely will continue to run the company and become executive chairman of the all-female board of directors.
Currently, Blackstone manages $119 billion in private equity assets and $35 billion in available capital, and has some interest in sports investments:
· In April, Blackstone participated in a $80 million Series C funding round for sports content startup Overtime.
· In July, Blackstone acquired a majority stake in collection certification group Certified Collectibles Group, which has a sports collection at a valuation of more than $500 million.
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