Koovs has reached a conditional agreement with Kishore Biyani‘s Future Lifestyle to sell 29.9% stake of the online fashion etailer for around ₹140 crores.
Koovs, an online fashion etailer based in Gurugram was founded by Rajesh Kamra, Amit Shukla and Manish Tewari in 2012. It is a curator of fashion styles from different international brands. Majority of its sales are from the private labels targetting Indian youths.
Future Lifestyle was founded in 2012 by Kishore Biyani. It owns and markets over two dozen fashion brands through its brand outlets, departmental stores and multi-brand outlets. It has a total of over 400 stores all over the country.
Koovs will issue 57,876,600 new ordinary shares at 10 pence per share to Future Lifestyle, which represents a total of 24.8% of its share capital. The money raised will amount to around ₹55 crores ($6.9 million). This is all subject to certain conditions and upon the fulfilment of those conditions Future Lifestyle will buy more shares and raise their ownership to 29.9%.
“FLFL’s (Future Lifestyles) strong retail presence backed by owned brands coupled with Koovs online strategy will help reach more customers and create value for all stakeholders,” said Kishore Biyani.
Lord Alli, chairman of Koovs said, “Future Lifestyle Fashion with its leadership position as an integrated branded fashion player and the Koovs brand and technology platform are an unbeatable combination. This investment will bring enormous benefits to our customers and partners as well as significant value for all shareholders.”
Biyani had earlier also tried to nab Jabong in 2016 unsuccessfully before it was bought by Flipkart. He had also started FutureBazaar, which has now become defunct. He has not had a good luck with online fashion etailers. Considering that more and more Indian population is moving towards online shopping, there is still a lot of scope for Biyani and Future Lifestyle to establish themselves in the online fashion etailer market. His recent acquisition could very well be the start he needs.