CANBERRA: MySale the fashion website backed by Topshop supremo Sir Philip Green and Sports Direct’s Mike Ashley, has expanded its Australian business by buying three online consumer retail businesses for £2.45mln.
The company, which helps retailers to off-load surplus stock, has exchanged contracts to acquire the trade and assets of the businesses from Grays E-Commerce in Australia.
The acquisition includes the domain names OO.com.au, Dealsdirect.com.au, Topbuy.com.au and all associated customer databases, intellectual property, trademarks and goodwill.
Green owns 25% of MySale while Sports Direct (LON:SPD) has a 4.8% stake.
The pair, who bought their stakes after MySale floated on the London Stock Exchange in June 2014, will be hoping the deal revives the fortunes of MySale.
At the end of last year, the group said pre-tax profits would fall short of market hopes after tougher trading in Australia and New Zealand. Shares fell by nearly half following the announcement.
The Grays operations have three websites with about 3.1mln average monthly visits, an e-mail database of 6.5mln customers and 512,000 active customers of which 50,000 overlap with MySale’s existing active customer base, in Australia and New Zealand, of 682,000.
The group said the deal, which is due to complete at the end of January next year, will substantially increase its potential active customer base.
Chief executive Carl Jackson said: “The sites being acquired are all well-recognised brands in their own right, with a female weighted customer base.
There is very little overlap with our existing member base.”
MySale has established flash sales sites in Australia, New Zealand, South-East Asia and the UK.
It has agreements with more than 2,500 brands and retailers who sell surplus or out-of-season stock on its websites.
