Richemont considers 2015 IPO for Net-a-Porter

Compagnie Financière Richemont, parent company of Net-a-Porter, is said to be considering an initial public offering of the luxury online retailer as soon as next year.

Richemont has already mulled over a series of options for the the future of the London-based etailer and spoken to a series of banks for advice, according to unnamed sources, revealed Bloomberg late last week. The Swiss-based luxury holding company may also consider a sale, but nothing is definite as of yet.

Either a sale or an IPO would make “sense” for the online retailer, said Rene Weber, an analyst at Bank Vontobel to Bloomberg, noting he had a preference for a future sale. “Online retailers don’t belong to luxury-goods companies in the long term.” He estimates Net-a-Porter's sales hit 580 million euros in the year to March, and will reach approximately 660 million euros for fiscal 2015.

The company, which owns bands such as Cartier, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Montblanc, and Van Cleef & Arpel, previously acquired the remaining two-thirds of Net-a-Porter it did not own in 2010, to boost its position in the luxury internet retailing field. Richemont denied rumors of an impending sale last October, after reports emerged of private talks with Italian rival group Yoox.

At the time, internal sourced revealed to Reuters that a potential deal with Yoox had been explored by Richemont, but was ultimately strike off by Net-a-Porter founder Natalie Massenet.