{"id":161898,"date":"2019-07-19T14:04:02","date_gmt":"2019-07-19T14:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theindustry.fashion\/liberty-sold-to-a-private-equity-led-consortium\/"},"modified":"2021-08-12T14:02:19","modified_gmt":"2021-08-12T14:02:19","slug":"liberty-sold-to-a-private-equity-led-consortium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theindustry.fashion\/liberty-sold-to-a-private-equity-led-consortium\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberty sold to a private equity-led consortium"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Landmark London department store Liberty has been <strong>sold to a private equity-led consortium in a deal\u00a0which values the\u00a0retailer at \u00a3300m.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Its previous owner BlueGem sold its controlling stake to a group led by private equity house\u00a0Glendower Capital.<\/p>\n<p>BlueGem <strong>acquired Liberty in 2010 from property group MWB for \u00a332m<\/strong> and in 2014, as part of a refinancing of the business, reduced its stake to 40%.<\/p>\n<p>A majority of existing Liberty investors, including BlueGem founder Marco Capello are retaining their shares in the business, while <strong>Capello will remain as non-executive chairman.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am confident we have built a truly differentiated business and assembled a first-class management team that will allow Liberty to reclaim its status as one of the most iconic brands in the world, and the last truly heritage British brand,\" Capello said.<\/p>\n<p>BlueGem, which was founded by a group of former Merrill Lynch bankers, <strong>also owns preppy fashion retailer Jack Wills<\/strong> and is currently looking to offload its interest in that business as well.<\/p>\n<p>During its ownership by BlueGem, the store has undergone a significant revamp with major investments in both its womenswear and menswear departments.\u00a0In recent years it has also made moves into new areas, such as online and digital capabilities.\u00a0Investment in this area has <strong>driven online revenues from \u00a31 million to \u00a314 million.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile the eponymous accessories brand <strong>Liberty London, launched three years ago, is now generating \u00a38 million of sales<\/strong>.\u00a0But the famous fabrics business is also still a core part of the business, with a compound annual growth rate of 11% since 2010.<\/p>\n<p>Department store sales are also stronger,<strong> jumping from \u00a336 million to \u00a394 million.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the year to February 2018 the company achieved<strong> sales of \u00a3133m with a pre-tax profit of \u00a37m<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The business will continue to be led by chief executive Adil Mehboob-Khan, former boss of Luxottica and Wella, who was appointed last year.<\/p>\n<p>Liberty was <strong>founded by Arthur Lasenby Liberty in 1875<\/strong> and moved into its mock Tudor store just off Regent Street in 1924.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":127059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10585,6,10494],"tags":[12695,11024,14968,9789,10023,11455],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Liberty sold to a private equity-led consortium - TheIndustry.fashion<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Landmark London department store Liberty has been sold to a private equity-led consortium in a deal\u00a0which values the\u00a0retailer at \u00a3300m. 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