London: Shein has added more banks to help arrange its potential initial public offering (IPO) that could value the online fashion retailer at £50bil or about US$65bil, potentially one of the biggest listings in London in recent years, people familiar with the matter say.
Barclays Plc and UBS Group AG have been picked as bookrunners for Shein’s IPO, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the information is private.
A listing could take place as soon as early next year, the people said, adding deliberations are ongoing and details of the IPO could still change.
The new bank mandates come as Shein is meeting prospective investors in New York this week following similar outreach in London.
The company has been working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Morgan Stanley on the listing preparations, Bloomberg News has reported.
Representatives for Barclays, UBS and Shein declined to comment.
Shein rerouted its application to London and confidentially filed papers with the British authorities earlier this year after its initial goal of listing in the United States turned sour.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission declined Shein’s request to submit a preliminary prospectus confidentially.
Its listing still requires regulatory approvals in China and Britain.
Founded in China but now based in Singapore, Shein has become one of the world’s most valuable startups thanks to its model of high-volume, ultra-cheap fashion.
Its phenomenal success has drawn competition from the likes of ByteDance Ltd’s TikTok and PDD Holdings Inc’s Temu.
In Britain, Shein saw its revenue rising 38% in 2023 from a year earlier, according to a filing last week at British registry Companies House.
Significant milestones in the year included opening its Manchester office and pop-up shops across Britain, including a bus tour, the company said.
All companies looking to sell shares in London will face scrutiny over workers’ rights, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Bloomberg Television, in response to questions about whether his new Labour government would welcome a listing by Shein.
“I’m not going to get into individual businesses. What I will say – let me be very clear about it – standards and high standards do matter to us,” Starmer said in an interview with Bloomberg’s head of economics and government Stephanie Flanders at the International Investment Summit in London on Monday.
“Of course we’ll be looking at any issue,” he continued, “with a particular feature on the rights of the workforce,” Starmer said.
A Bloomberg study in 2022 found that garments shipped to the US by Shein were made with cotton from China’s Xinjiang region, where the US State Department has alleged human rights abuses against the Uyghur people, which China denies.
Though the firm has said it has a “zero-tolerance policy for forced labour”, an earlier plan to list in New York was met with opposition from US lawmakers.
A share sale in London would also be controversial, after Starmer’s party made boosting protection for workers a key pledge in its election manifesto.
The government published draft legislation last week seeing to balance the competing demands of trade unions and business leaders, including greater entitlements to sick pay and protection against unfair dismissal. — Bloomberg
