The five managing directors of Mytheresa had certainly imagined it differently. Instead of standing on the gallery in the stock exchange hall in New York, they stand in the office in Aschheim near Munich and watch by video how an employee of the New York Stock Exchange rings the stock exchange bell. But that should have been the only downer. Because the debut was very successful.
Mytheresa starts with price gains on the New York Stock Exchange
The luxury online fashion retailer started on Thursday with strong price gains on the New York Stock Exchange. The shares of the company’s parent company, MYT Netherlands Parent BV, were first traded yesterday. The papers rose in the meantime to up to 36.03 dollars and leveled off above 33 US dollars, well above the issue price of 26 dollars per share (21.46 euros).
Just under a fifth of the company is offered when it goes public. He is said to collect a total of up to 467 million dollars (385 million euros), of which up to 370 million (305 million euros) will flow into the company. In 2014, the US luxury department store chain Neiman Marcus took over Mytheresa, but filed for bankruptcy in May 2020. Financial investors had prevented Mytheresa from being smashed as part of the bankruptcy. Now the shareholder loan worth a good $ 200 million is to be repaid first. The rest is invested in international growth
Decision for the New York Stock Exchange
With the decision to go public in New York, Mytheresa is following a trend, explains Stefan Jekel. As “Head of International Listings” he is responsible for companies from all over the world that are listed on the US stock exchange. Companies that primarily do business on the Internet, in particular, often choose Wall Street, according to Jekel.
One reason is the attitude of US investors to risk. “Access to the capital market continues to be highly attractive, also because of the willingness of local investors to take risks. Of course, this also has to do with the overall size of the US market. But investors on the New York Stock Exchange look to growth companies – including those that are not yet profitable – a particularly big appetite, “the Wiesbaden-born native explains.
Possible risk: No own products
Mytheresa is an online platform for fashion from luxury brands. One risk, especially from the perspective of risk-averse investors, is that there are only a few real equivalent values, such as machines, large real estate or their own products. If the company cannot hold its own in the market, investors can suffer high losses. On the other hand, “Internet companies” can grow much faster than industrial companies. If successful, the value of the company can rise sharply.
Just one example of success is the company Fiverr, an online marketplace for services with headquarters in Tel Aviv. Since going public in summer 2019, the company has currently increased its market value approximately sevenfold.
Corona also affects IPOs
The corona pandemic sent stock exchanges worldwide downhill almost a year ago. Also because of huge government aid packages and still very cheap central bank money, they are currently at record levels. However, the virus has also overturned the plans of many companies with regard to going public. While some companies have postponed their stock market plans for the time being in order to readjust their business model, others have shown themselves to be unimpressed or even preferred their plans, explains Stefan Jekel.
A prominent example of an IPO that would not have happened without Corona is the Tübingen company Curevac, which is developing a vaccine against Corona. In June 2019, the company raised money on the stock exchange in New York.
Going public in the US doesn’t just have advantages. Strict rules on the topics of transparency and “compliance”, for example, cause comparatively high costs, which, however, should be easy for companies to shoulder in the event of a successful IPO.
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