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Underwear Market: A Unicorn Is Being Born

2021/9/26 13:18:00 0

Vimy

Underwear angel's ending, reversed.

The investment community has learned that Victoria's secret, a world-famous underwear brand, has been officially listed on the New York Stock Exchange after its separation from its parent company l brands group. The market value of Victoria's secret has exceeded US $5.3 billion (about RMB 35 billion).

Before that, this sexy ancestor was almost unable to survive in the shadow of the epidemic. In April last year, a break of contract by the PE giant of vimentin went to the edge of a cliff. First, 250 stores in North America were permanently closed, and then the British company was forced to go into bankruptcy. I didn't expect that a year later, it even ran into the market in a sigh, and the Vimy show, which has not been seen for many years, is expected to return in 2022.

Almost at the same time, a new underwear war is playing out in China on the other side of the ocean. Sequoia China, IDG capital, today capital, Qiming venture capital, GGV Jiyuan capital, Yuansheng capital and other well-known VC have come one after another. It can be called the "three sisters" of new underwear in the world. It mainly focuses on the size free and non size jiaonei, ubras, inside and outside. In just three years, it has broken out of the old underwear team. Different from the Weimi era, Chinese women's underwear no longer tells sexy stories.

After being abandoned by PE, the IPO of underwear Empire rings the bell

The market value is nearly 35 billion

Once upon a time, the sexy myth of Vimy was almost shattered.

Weimi has been on the downhill road for many years, even aggravating the loss of the parent company l brands group, becoming a "oil bottle". In desperation, l brands group began to look for a buyer for Weimi. In February 2020, sycamore partners, a well-known PE giant, announced that it would acquire 55% of Victoria's Secret equity from L brands group for up to $525 million.

In the whole deal, the deal is valued at just $1.1 billion , which is far lower than analysts' estimated range of $2-3.4 billion, which is regarded as "cheap sale" in the industry. Once the deal is completed, Vimy will be spun off of the listed business of L brands and enter the privatization process. Les Wexner, the group's founder, will step down as CEO and chairman of L brands.

However, this is also considered to be the last straw for Vimy, but sycamore partners Break the contract suddenly 。 In April, the PE giant filed an application with the Delaware district court Termination of the $525 million acquisition of Weimi The reason given is that l brands closed most of its stores in late February due to the global outbreak of new crown pneumonia, which violated the purchase terms previously signed by both parties. Subsequently, in early May, l brands publicly agreed to cancel the deal, close all pending litigation, and mutually exempt claims.

The termination of the deal directly pushed Vimy to the edge of the cliff. Half a month after agreeing to break the contract, l brands announced that in 2020 Permanent closure of about 250 Vimy stores in North America , which is about a quarter of Vimy's global stores. To make matters worse, Victoria's secret British company went into bankruptcy in June of the same year.

Deloitte said it would help the company restructure its investment, adjust lease terms and find potential buyers for it. Three months later, Weimi found a new buyer, and next, a British fashion retailer, took over its business operations in the UK. Next held 51% of the shares, while Weimi retained 49%.

Weimi's ill fated life has attracted netizens to sigh. Some netizens lamented, "underwear is still very good to wear, but it's a pity." some comments and analysis think that it is expected: "Weimi is more and more depressed, the time of gods has passed, sooner or later there will be this day." some even joked: since Xi Mengyao fell down from the stage, Weimi has gone downhill.

Surprisingly, It was in such a decline that Vimy staged a counter attack 。 According to the company's financial report data, in the three months ending July 31, the company's net sales volume reached $1.614 billion, a year-on-year increase of more than 50%, and a net profit of $151 million, a five-year high, and a net loss of $199 million in the same period last year.

Weimi, once in peril, even quietly stepped on the stage of IPO bell ringing. On August 3 this year, Weimi was officially separated from its parent company l brands group and listed on the NYSE as an independent company. Together with it, there are two business lines of Vimy beauty and lingerie brand pink.

On the day of listing, Vimy opened at $45, and then rose all the way to a maximum of $72. So far, Weimi's total market value is more than 5.3 billion US dollars, about 35 billion yuan.

Two men create a sexy myth

The Vimy show will return next year

In the past half century, Vimy has enjoyed a great deal.

In 1977, Roy Raymond, a graduate of Stanford University's School of economics, went into an underwear store to buy sexy underwear for his newly married wife. However, the United States in the 1970s was far from open now. Roy, who appeared in the store, received a strange look from the saleswoman in the store, which made him very embarrassed. What's worse, he found that the underwear in the store was either too fancy or too rigid, and even the fluorescent lights were too crude and dazzling, making it difficult for him to choose the right underwear.

The experience inspired Roy, 30, to start his own business—— Open a boutique store for men to buy and buy. Soon, Roy borrowed $40000 from the bank to open an upscale boutique underwear store in San Francisco's Stanford shopping center, and named it Victoria's secret.

At that time, Vimy, which emphasized mystery and sexuality rather than comfort, overturned the understanding of underwear among men and women, and became a fashion trendsetter on the streets of San Francisco. The first store brought in $500000 in revenue in just one year, and sales continued to rise. Over the next five years, Roy expanded his stores to five, with an annual revenue of $5 million "An underwear brand that has changed American women.".

In 1982, after five years of operation, Roy sold Vimy to l brands. After taking over, l brands adjusted its marketing strategy, focusing on women's market, and set a sexy image positioning for Vimy. The man also created a global attention fashion party "Vimy show". In 1995, at the Plaza Hotel in New York, Vimy invited the then top directors to spend $120000 to hold the first Vimy fashion show. The super sexy theme created by the show caused a sensation.

Since then, the annual Vimy show is bound to become a hot topic in the fashion circle, with more than 12 million people watching it at its peak. With a large number of super models such as Giselle bonchen and Miranda Kerr who have been popular all over the world, Vimy has been firmly on the top of the flow. As for the secret of success, nothing else is marketing and promotion. For a long time, women were proud to wear Vimy.

However, no one stands at the peak forever. The decline began to emerge in 2015, with the decline of revenue. Since 2016, the operating profit of Vimy has fallen for four years. Until 2019, the cold and quiet show of Vimy was stopped, and this popular sexy feast finally entered the dust of history.

The parent company disliked, PE abandoned, nearly bankrupt... Under a series of frustrated stories, how did Weimi realize the reversal? Weimi, who has never given up self-help, has begun to change its mind. It is changing its brand image, spokesperson and product line, trying to tear off the "sexy" brand label and emphasizing the combination of comfort and fashion.

It is worth mentioning that the Vimy show is also expected to return. June this year , Weimi announced that the Vimy show will return in different forms in 2022 But instead of "angel supermodel" and wings and other classic elements, it is replaced by the "vs collective" composed of seven women who have made outstanding achievements in their respective fields.

A new Vimy story has begun.

China underwear war, Sequoia, Xu Xin all come

Unicorns are being born

Revived, Vimy is on China.

This is a huge market. According to AI media consulting data, by the end of 2020, China's underwear consumption demand will exceed 17 billion pieces, and the overall market size will reach 440 billion yuan; In addition, according to Euromonitor's preliminary calculation, the market size of Chinese women's underwear will be close to 170 billion yuan in 2020. However, Chinese underwear brands are extremely scattered and giants have not yet been born.

A number of old underwear companies have rung the bell one after another. In May this year, an old local underwear brand stepped on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's IPO bell ringing stage, with a total market value of more than 10 billion yuan. Zhang Rongming, a Suzhou man born after 60, created this underwear giant. This is the fourth underwear IPO company in China after the city beauty, Huijie shares and anlifang holding.

However, under the impact of new consumption and new crowd, the old underwear brand is hard to hide its decline. Among them, urban beauty is particularly typical. Since 2010, the urban beauty who takes the civilian route of "cheap and moderate quality" has broken the market pattern of underwear in China. It is another brand vane after adoration, occupying the first place in the market with more than 8000 stores.

However, in the era of mobile Internet in 2016, with the rapid development of e-commerce and logistics, the revenue and profit of urban beauty have both declined, and the loss will be more than 100 million yuan in 2020. The experience of urban beauty is not an exception. The other three underwear Kings also have been eclipsed by the "underwear steel circle".

Behind the failure of underwear "Four Heavenly Kings", A "no steel ring" movement is sweeping the underwear world. According to a market survey conducted by AI media, 76.6% of Chinese consumers prefer rimless underwear in 2020. With the development of human civilization, the demand for underwear of Chinese women has changed from "pleasing others" to "pleasing themselves". Comfort has become one of the important standards for wearing underwear.

A new underwear carnival is on. Not long ago, market rumors said that jiaonei would complete a new round of financing from tiger Global Fund, The post investment valuation is $2 billion. However, this news was quickly denied by Zang Chongyu, founder of jiaonei. As a matter of fact, as early as November last year, jiaonei obtained several hundred million yuan of financing exclusively invested by Yuansheng capital, with a post investment valuation of 2.5 billion yuan, It has become the most valued underwear company in the past decade.

It's not just this family that is being sought after. A tree of the new brand has been valued at 1 billion yuan in less than two years. In July this year, the internal and external financing of 100 million US dollars was completed in 2012. Up to now, the underwear brand has completed eight rounds of financing. The investors include Cifu capital, Xiangfeng investment, Qiming venture capital, Fengqiao capital, etc.

Ubras, which was established in 2016, has gathered a large number of big investors: in 2018, Xu Xin's today capital invested 50 million yuan exclusively in ubras. In September 2020, today capital joined hands with Sequoia China to launch B + round, and IDG capital also entered the board in January 2021. Here's a little detail ——Tu ya, the founder of ubras, was a marketing manager of adoration. As early as 2010, today's capital invested in urban beauty. Eight years later, Xu Xin chose ubras. So far, Queen Xu Xin has invested in Chinese underwear.

Just as every consumer category deserves to be redone, now it's underwear. Here, there's a unicorn that you can't imagine.


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