Electra Private Equity has announced its intention to float Hotter Shoes on AIM later this year. This follows its disposal of Sentinel Performance Solutions last month.
“The new management teams at our two remaining larger portfolio assets, Fridays and Hotter have performed admirably through the pandemic, not just sustaining their businesses in the most difficult circumstances, but also transforming them. In light of this, and their potential for further significant longer-term value creation, the board has decided that the optimal outcome for shareholders is likely to lie in a capital market solution for both businesses.”
He added: “It is our intention to demerge Fridays onto the FTSE Main Market late in the third quarter of this year and, subsequently, in the fourth quarter, to bring Hotter on to AIM through reclassification of the Electra entity. Plans are well advanced for both listings.”
Hotter had closed 59 stores and axed hundreds of jobs in a restructuring last year, heralding a refocusing on the online retail model. Electra said that, following the implementation of its ‘direct to consumer’ operating model in October 2020, Hotter continues to perform strongly with focus on its ‘freesole’, ‘cushion +’ and ‘stability +’ product ranges which incorporate differentiating technology to meet customers’ needs beyond the core brand promise of uncompromising comfort and fit. Hotter’s UK achieved 30 per cent online like-for-like sales growth in the seven months to the end of April 2021. Online sales in the UK and US represented 68 per cent of total sales in the seven months from October 2020, up from 54 per cent in the prior year on a like-for-like basis.
It said, while Hotter is relatively early in the demonstration of sustained growth and profitability in its new model, the resilience and performance to date give Electra grounds for confidence in its development as an increasingly profitable digital business serving its target demographic of over-55-year-olds in the UK, the US and beyond.
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