Ted Baker Private Equity Bid

Ted Baker Private Equity Bid by Adam Rosen last updated on July 02, 2022

Ted Baker fashion retailer is swimming in troubled water. New York-based private equity firm Sycamore Partners is making a cash offer, even though the talks are in the early sage. However, it is not certain whether the offer would be accepted.

The shares of Ted Baker soared with the news of potential bid and the rise was as much as 19.4 percent.

Many UK entities are on the verge of takeover from US firms and Ted Baker is the latest one. Its current market value is nearly 180 million pounds and this is just a fraction of what the company was worth at its peak in 2015.

It has retail outlets in about 400 locations across Europe, the UK and North America. It has a focused plan of reducing the costs and increasing online presence as well as boosting the product range in three years time frame.

Ted Baker CFO David Wolffe stated material and labor costs have lately increased and the company is trying to mitigate the impact with improved product sourcing. By the end of 2021, it reported an impressive sales jump.

However, the shares have declined 94 percent in the period of the past three years. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for its products was impacted heavily.

In the three-year plan, the company outlined to be opening three or more retail outlets each year in the UK. It talked about expanding licenses.

As of now, no official announcement of offer from Sycamore has been made and the company stated the business is in good progress and emerging into a financially sustainable retailer gradually after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Board meanwhile is confident that the company will have a good prospect independently but any offer of takeover needs to be carefully evaluated.

About Ted Baker

Ted Baker was founded in 1988 in Glasgow, Scotland, with the opening of its first store by Ray Kelvin. It thereafter opened stores in Nottingham and Manchester. It launched Ted Baker Woman in 1995. It shifted the headquarters in London in 2017 and the office space was bought for 58.25 million pounds.

Currently, it has outlets and stores across Europe, Canada, the United States, Asia, Australia, the Middle East and South Africa. It has about 500 stores worldwide.

The company is listed on LSE in the UK and is traded as TED. The key people now are CEO Rachel Osborne and interim chairperson Helena Feltham.