Maje and Sandro owner valued at 1.1 billion dollars

French contemporary brands Sandro, Maje and Claudie Pierlot, from the French fashion group SMCP, is looking to be floated on the stockmarket next year or perhaps even sold, according to Reuters.

The group’s controlling shareholder, private equity firm KKR, is understood to have valued the portfolio at 1.14 billion dollars, and hired Bank of America Merrill Lynch and UBS to review options that could include a flotation on the Paris stock market in 2016, sources said.

KKR acquired a more than 60 percent stake in the company in 2013 in a deal that valued it at around 650 million euros. Back then, the business made 422 million euros in annual sales. Last year, SMCP’s total sales reached 509 million euros, with H1 sales rising 32 percent.

SMCP Chief Executive Daniel Lalonde told Reuters in an interview last week that the company had good growth potential, with ambitious plans to expand across China as well as in several European countries including the UK and Italy.

Lalonde said SMCP had enjoyed annual sales growth of more than 20 percent in recent years and opened around 120 stores a year with no plans to slow down. In the past 18 months, it had entered China, Russia and the Middle East, he said.