HBC plans IPO for Saks.com

Hudson’s Bay Co. (HBC) has plans to spin off Saks.com into a public company in the near future. The news was reported by WWD. HBC has been meeting with investors regarding taking the company public.

The plan is to split Saks.com from the Saks brick-and-mortar stores. The plan is to do an IPO within the next 12 months.

This would make Saks Fifth Avenue brick-and-mortar stores and Saks.com two separate freestanding companies. The companies would have an agreement between them to favor an omnichannel approach.

Saks.com generates 1 billion dollars in sales, twice the volume of competitor Mytheresa.com, which went public this Thursday and saw soaring stock prices. Mytheresa launched at 26 dollars a share and saw its stock price rise to 32 dollars and 82 cents in midday trading today. The company’s current market capitalization is 2.9 billion dollars.

HBC wants to do a private placement for Saks.com, which would set a value for the dot-com business and ease any reservations investors would have. It is believed that separating their brick-and-mortar from their e-commerce business in such a way would be a first in apparel retail.

Saks.com has seen double-digit growth over the past several years. The website also saw a relaunch in October after it was re-platformed with Salesforce Commerce Cloud. E-commerce has been a major investment area for Saks, especially after the global coronavirus pandemic, where customers only option for months was to shop online.

photo: via saks.com