La Chapelle's turnaround listing

According to Hong Kong media reports, Shanghai Lachabel Clothing Co., Ltd. ("Lachabel"), a well-known women's retail company, will be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in the near future and plans to raise 300 million U.S. dollars (about 1.88 billion yuan). ). Lachabel has passed the listing hearing. China Gold and Morgan Stanley are responsible for underwriting.

In fact, in 2012, La Chapelle once lining up with the rest of the textile and apparel industry peers in the A shares sprint IPO. These companies include Zhejiang George White apparel, Jiangsu AB Group, Jiangsu Yunbat apparel, Ningbo Kaixin apparel (ODM-type women's clothing processing company), elegant bird, Haishu home, Canoudi Road, Zhejiang Xinao Textile, Huarong (Xiamen) ) New Materials Technology, Quanzhou Haitian Materials Technology, leather and footwear companies include Aokang Footwear and Industrial Leather.

However, as teammates, the fate is different. Since then, the two men's brands, Georgie White, who specializes in the positioning of professional wear, and Canoudi Road, which are high-end boutiques, have all successfully received listings.

On November 3, 2012, the situation was even more uncertain. The IPO was “closed” for the eighth time and was not restarted until January 2014 after more than 13 months. During this time of closing, Fujian Nuoqi, Ningbo Kaixin Garments, Jiangsu Yunbat Garments, Fugui Birds, Shanghai Mercury Home Textiles, etc. were all “terminated” and missed the A-share market.

At the end of May 2013, La Chapelle also appeared in the list of “termination of censorship” companies announced by the China Securities Regulatory Commission. In desperation, Fujian Nocchi and Fugui Bird had moved to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and they successfully listed on the H-shares; Hailan's House finally chose to go back-to-market on the Keno Technology "curve."

The choice of teammates may have given La Chapelle inspiration. At the beginning of November 2013, La Chapelle also submitted an IPO application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. At that time, it planned to raise about 600 million U.S. dollars. According to the latest disclosure, Lachaiba's time to market was four months ahead of September's previous forecast, and the 300 million U.S. dollars to be raised were also reduced by half compared to previous plans.

La Chapelle was founded in 1998. It owns 10 brands including La Chapelle, La Chapelle SPORT, 7. Modifier, Candie's, La Chapelle Homme, and La Chapelle Kids. It covers women's wear, children's wear, and men's wear. In terms of category, the brand's presence in high-end, fashion department stores and shopping centers in major cities is very high.

Consumers are most familiar with their main brand, La Chapelle. They mainly deal with white-collar workers aged 24 to 30 years, and their prices are medium-high; La Chapelle SPORT is targeted at 20- to 30-year-old girls, and they mainly focus on casual sports. Candie's Located in the 16 to 24 year-old fashion, cute girls, suitable for large and middle school students, the price is lower; La Chapelle Homme hit the urban style and college style.

Lachabel headed by Xing Jiaxing. Prior to 1998, he was engaged in a women's brand agency business. In 1998, with his accumulated experience, she identified the market as a blank point for Shaoshu Women and founded La Chapelle. Xing Jiaxing's operating system with ZARA as a brand reference emphasizes the rapid updating of styles.

According to statistics, in 2009, sales revenue of La Chapelle was approximately 500 million yuan; in 2010 sales revenue exceeded 1 billion yuan; sales revenue in 2011 was approximately 2 billion yuan. In 2013, some media reported that La Chapelle’s sales exceeded 8 billion yuan, and its net profit was 500 million yuan, which was double that of 2012.

In recent years, La Chapelle's expansion has focused on large-scale opening of stores and opening of large stores. Its large-scale store opened up with the help of capital. At the end of 2007, La Chapelle introduced two venture capital investments. In the first half of 2010, Lenovo, the famous Lenovo Group, invested 10 million U.S. dollars in investment, and then opened stores to speed up. At the end of 2010, the number of its stores was about 900, and it has now greatly increased to about 5,000. In more than three years, the number of stores has increased by 4.56 times.

In the terminal mode, it began to tend to open large flagship stores with an area of ​​over 1,000 square meters. Previously, the area of ​​its ground floor shops was generally about 100~200 square meters. In the Shaoshu Women's Floor of shopping malls and shopping centers, the main brand, La Chapelle, has also begun to open stores with various new brands such as La Chapelle SPORT and La Chapelle Homme. Multiple brands are adjacent or spaced to expand the area of ​​counters. The shopping experience of customers has been improved.

Insiders pointed out that there is a characteristic of La Chapelle's channel, insisting on doing all direct operations, which is very rare in domestic garment enterprises. However, under the current background of weak demand, the considerable performance of La Chapelle is largely driven by the continuous expansion of the scale.

According to Liu Xueya, a counselor of Hejun Consulting Group, in the domestic clothing brands, Lachapelle's multi-branding is doing well. Judging from the terminal channels, La Chapelle has developed a large-scale multi-brand store with a single store sales at an intermediate level in the industry.

However, Liu Xueya also pointed out that the homogeneity of commodities among different brands is the embarrassment that Rachael is currently facing. She believes that this is related to the management style of the company. Different brands have decisions made by the same team. There are always similarities in design and fabrics. Therefore, no matter how the interior is divided, the faces will always be similar when presented in the terminal.

But in any case, at least compared to those companies still struggling to sprint A shares IPO, La Chapelle can temporarily breathe a sigh of relief.