Aspinal of London Appoints Investment Bank Houlihan Lokey to Maximise Growth Strategy

LONDON, Nov. 6, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Aspinal of London is pleased to report that it has appointed Houlihan Lokey, a leading international investment bank, to assist the company on evaluating strategic options to fund the company's strong and continuing growth.

Aspinal has been consolidating its UK business while at the same time seeding the brand internationally with excellent results. Starting with two new flagship stores in London and Dubai in 2018, the company is now seeking a financial partner to facilitate the roll out of further flagships with a particular focus on China, the Middle East and the US. The new financial partner will support a Worldwide online growth plan over the next five - seven years to achieve a significant next milestone in the establishment of the Aspinal of London brand Worldwide.

Here in the UK, the company has continued to invest in growth including in a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and moved to a significantly enhanced new external warehouse. Both are now in place and ready to support the next stage of our growth.

We are delighted to report that current trading is good:

• London ? in 2018, Aspinal invested in a new 3500sq ft flagship store in London, St James, Regent Street which has proved to be a highly successful brand development.  We expect it to produce strong initial EBITDA for the year 2019/20, with current trading up 20% in the last six months to September ? and 70% ahead for the month of September substantially driven by a growing international customer base
• The rest of the London and UK retail portfolio is trading well. Like for like sales are up 5% with some stores reporting stunning performances such as newly renovated Westfield +25%, Regent Street +20%, Royal Exchange +17%

The international growth strategy has several key elements:

• Middle East ? following the very successful launch of our flagship store in the Middle East in Dubai Mall 2018, and our portfolio of four stores in ME, a further roll out of an additional 8-10 stores across the Middle East is in planning over the next two years.
• Paris ? in January 2019 Aspinal opened a temporary store in Galeries Lafayette, Paris opposite DIOR & FENDI.  The store performed very strongly in line and ahead of other major worldwide European and USA brands validating the potential worldwide for Aspinal brand and its positioning.
• New York USA ? in 2018 Aspinal launched their first collection in leading fashion department store Barneys New York in the prime position ground floor luxury area. This saw a very strong 70% sell though in the first four weeks of trading leading to advanced conversations from Other leading luxury USA department stores.  Aspinal's USA online revenue has grown 10% and the USA customer footfall in London is up 50% this year.
• China ? we are particularly excited by the imminent launch this month November of our first store in China (Shanghai) located right at the entrance to the new Galeries Lafayette department store situated within the brand new "L+Mall" in the trendy Pudong District.  This will support our strategy to grow revenues in the huge potential online market in China and continue to build awareness of the brand in China.  Chinese customers already account for approximately 10% of all retail sales in our key London stores including Selfridges and Harrods.
• E Comm ? our Aspinal online E Comm business is c. 45% of our total sales is very strong, trading well up 10% on last year. Currently Aspinal's online business is almost exclusively direct to our own customers and primarily UK based. The business now intends to develop distribution via the international online market platforms where thus far Aspinal has had no exposure ? Farfetch being first which will launch early next year.

Iain Burton
Chairman

Aspinaloflondon.com
@aspinaloflondon 

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