Belle Fashion Group is targeting to raise about $1 billion in its Hong Kong initial public offering, people familiar with the matter said, five years after private equity firms took China’s biggest women’s footwear retailer private.
The company filed for the proposed share sale on Wednesday without details of the offering. Deliberations are ongoing and the fundraising size could still change depending on market conditions, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. A representative for Belle Fashion wasn’t immediately available for comment.
The IPO would end a hiatus of sizeable share sales by consumer-sector firms in Hong Kong’s capital market, which has been dominated by listings of Chinese technology and health care companies. At $1 billion, Belle Fashion’s IPO would be the largest by a consumer brand since detergent maker Blue Moon Group Holdings Ltd.’s $1.46 billion offering in December 2020.
Belle Fashion is owned by buyout firms Hillhouse Capital and CDH Investments as well as the retailer’s management, according to its preliminary filing. The consortium bought out Belle International Holdings Ltd., formerly traded in Hong Kong, in a $6.8 billion deal and took it private in 2017. The owners spun off Belle’s sportswear unit for a seperate listing two years later.
Belle Fashion’s brands include Staccato, Tata and Basto, the filing shows. Its net income was 2.3 billion yuan ($362 million) for the nine months ended Nov. 30. Bank of America Corp. and Morgan Stanley are joint sponsors of the listing.
By Vinicy Chan and Julia Fioretti
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