After Amazon, Yoox reportedly in the run for Net-A-Porter

After Amazon finished the week reportedly interested in acquiring luxury e-tailer Net-A-Porter, over the weekend new reports broke about Italian competitor Yoox also eyeing the London-based online fashion business.

As reported by ‘The Independent’ over the weekend, The Italian Internet retailer Yoox is the latest contender to join the bidding race to acquire the luxury fashion business Net-a-Porter. The reported deal could value the latter at more than 1.3 billion pounds.

As pointed out by Reuters Sunday, Milan-listed Yoox, which operates e-commerce sites for brands such as Armani and is valued at 950 million pounds, is understood to have entered talks for a tie-up.

Natalie Massenet’s brainchild launched in 2000 and it reported turnover of 533 million pounds for the year to 29 March 2014, up 23 percent on the previous year.

Up to date and since 2010, Net-a-Porter is part of the Swiss luxury group Richemont, which after holding a 33 percent stake in the business for years, agreed to buy the rest of the company five years ago.

Earlier this month, both ‘WWD’ and ‘Forbes’ magazine pointed to Amazon as the most probable suitor which would be allegedly valuing Net-a-Porter lower than the valuation of 2 billion euros reported by the fashion industry trade journal, ‘Forbes’ said, citing a person familiar with the matter.

However, the financial magazine stressed that those negotiations are in early stages and could fall apart, Forbes reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.