Made.com has begun looking at fundraising options, including a stock market floatation, which could value it at more than £500m.
The online furniture and homewares retailer has sought advisers to explore a variety of options, including an initial public offering to take place in the coming months, as first reported by Sky News. The other options being explored are reportedly a sale of a stake in to an investor, or a sale of the business.
Sky News was told that suggested that the company’s strong trading performance in the past year, amid surging demand for online retail and furniture sales, made it suitable for a flotation. Is most recent results, for 2019, saw sales jump 22% to £211m but losses increased to £19.3m as it expanded to new markets.
In October 2019 it raised £43m from investors.
‘The rapid acceleration in the shift to online shopping, with three to five years change in the past 12 months, meant that 2020 was extremely successful for Made, despite the challenging environment. As we move into 2021, we are exploring the best way to ensure that the business has all the resources required to build on our momentum and seize this unique moment of opportunity,’ says Made.com spokesman.
