Princess Polly – divestment to Summit Partners
Miles Advisory Partners advised the shareholders of Princess Polly on their divestment to US specialist private equity firm Summit Partners.
Transaction Details
Sector
Consumer
Miles Role
Sell-side advisor to the shareholders of Princess Polly
Deal Type
Business Divestments
Year Completed
2018
Contacts for this Transaction
Rohan Manikath
Managing Director
Overview
- An early mover in Australian online fashion, Princess Polly launched in 2010 and has scaled rapidly from its headquarters in Burleigh Heads, QLD
- Princess Polly is the clear market leader in Australia, ranking as the #1 online women's fashion retailer and the #3 online pure-play fashion retailer nationwide
- Its core offering is a fast-refreshed range of women's apparel and accessories, serving a core market of 16–26-year-old females
- Products are sold through a digitally native model spanning its e-commerce site, mobile app and social channels, engineered to convert seasonal trends into product as quickly as possible
- Miles designed a process that generated strong interest from multiple parties, ultimately securing a cross-border transaction that provided Princess Polly with a strategic US partner to help accelerate its international expansion
Industry Context
The transaction highlighted a number of highly-relevant industry thematics, including the accelerating structural shift of apparel spending from bricks-and-mortar to online, with digital brands capturing share from incumbent department stores and traditional fast fashion chains, and the emergence of social commerce and influencer-led marketing (Instagram, and increasingly short-form video) as structurally lower-cost, higher-engagement customer acquisition channels.
