After strong rumours last week, on Monday Richemont announced that yes, it is ‘selling’ Yoox Net-A-Porter (YNAP) to luxury fashion e-tailer Mytheresa, although it won’t receive any cash for the deal.

And it seems that Richemont doesn’t want to cut its ties with pureplay high-end end e-tail altogether as the deal comes with the Swiss group gaining a 33% equity stake in Mytheresa.

Richemont is offloading the business with a cash position of €555 million and no financial debt, subject to customary closing adjustments. It will also provide a €100 million revolving credit facility to YNAP. It currently expects the write-down of YNAP net assets to amount to around €1.3 billion.

The transaction should close in the first half of 2025, subject to customary conditions, including regulatory approvals. It will mean a group “of significant scale, global reach as well as exceptional customer centricity”.

The sale agreement is a binding one with Mytheresa taking on 100% of the share capital of YNAP and the companies saying the aim is to “create a leading, global, multi-brand digital luxury group offering a highly curated and strongly differentiated edit of the most prestigious luxury brands and products to luxury enthusiasts worldwide”.

Richemont said Mytheresa and YNAP “have each earned a strong reputation in the luxury industry for their pioneering roles in innovation, authoritative editorial voice and curation, as well as high-quality customer service. Together, the different storefronts cover a broad spectrum of the luxury market with distinct propositions in terms of brand portfolio, customer and geographical focus while sharing the strategic positioning towards high-end customers”.

Some might not see parts of the YNAP proposition as that distinct from Mytheresa’s with Net-A-Porter and Mr Porter competing for many of the same brands and customers.

Integration and separation

But those two webstores look set to continue, albeit with some big change ahead. Richemont added that “in the medium term, Mytheresa’s vision for the combined group entails the integration of YNAP’s Luxury division into Mytheresa, to form one group with three distinct storefronts: Mytheresa, Net-A-Porter and Mr Porter”.

This set-up is expected to “provide a broader and further differentiated luxury offering towards customers based on distinctive assortments, marketing and customer touchpoints; offer luxury brand partners an even broader and specific reach of luxury consumers worldwide as a result of distinctive curation and inspiration; and share infrastructure including Mytheresa`s technology platform and operational best practices to facilitate greater efficiencies while maintaining their distinct brand identities”. 

The off-price division — that is, Yoox and The Outnet — will be separated from the Luxury division “to allow for a simpler and more efficient operating model driving higher growth and profitability”. 

YNAP’s white-label division that had once been a big focus for the business will also be discontinued once the Richemont Maisons’ online stores powered by YNAP migrate to their own chosen platforms. 

There was no talk of jobs but it seems clear that there will be an impact here given the plan to share infrastructure and the white-label move.

There was also no talk of exactly how the in-season operations — particularly Mytheresa itself and womenswear-focused Net-A-Porter — will be clearly differentiated from each other.

Mytheresa CEO Michael Klinger said: “I am truly excited by today’s announcement. With this transaction, Mytheresa aims to create a pre-eminent, multi-brand, digital, luxury group worldwide. Mytheresa, Net-A-Porter and Mr Porter will offer differentiated but complementary multi-brand luxury edits based on curation, inspiration and… customer service. 

“The three brands will share a large part of their infrastructure creating synergies and efficiencies while maintaining their different brand identities. The off-price business will benefit from the separation from luxury and a much simpler operating model. We believe that this transaction will create significant value for our shareholders, brand partners and most importantly for our high-end customers.”

Johann Rupert, chairman of Richemont, added: “We are pleased to have found such a good home for YNAP. As a trusted partner to many of the world’s leading global luxury brands, YNAP is renowned for its pioneering high-end customer services complemented by its distinctive and inspirational editorial voice. Mytheresa is ideally placed to build on YNAP’s assets to further delight customers and brand partners alike across the world by harnessing both companies’ respective strengths.”

The deal comes after Richemont seeking a buyer for YNAP for many years and also after a deal it has struck with Farfetch fell through when that firm’s own troubles saw it being acquired by Coupang.