High Street Return Floated After Sale Of Global Fashion Brand Topshop

An unlikely rebirth of a former fashion powerhouse could be on the cards after a major deal completed for a global brand that feel victim to the chaotic collapse of one of Britain’s biggest retail groups.

Former U.K. high street fashion giant Topshop is poised for a comeback after online fashion owner Asos sold a majority stake in the business for $178 million to a Danish retail group.

Heartland, an arm of Bestseller, the Danish fashion business controlled by the major Asos shareholder Anders Povlsen, is the buyer and Povlsen already owns popular European retail brands including Jack & Jones and Vero Moda via his Bestseller business.

The deal will help it repay debts and could even see the brand return to the high street, after the online fashion seller said that it had sold a 75% stake in Topshop, which it had acquired with other brands just over three years ago for nearly $435 million.

Topshop was one of the powerhouses of the global apparel world in the late 1990s and early 2000s and was the flagship of Sir Philip Green’s all-encompassing Arcadia empire, with stores worldwide including on Fifth Avenue, New York.

It’s easy to forget that at it’s height it traded blows with other global fashion groups such as Inditex and H&M, but its demise was sudden and dramatic.

Topshop Administration

Topshop fell into administration in late 2020 as part of the collapse of Green’s retail group as the disgraced former retail guru saw his business empire fall apart and was relaunched selling apparel online only the following year by the U.K.’s Asos.

Asos CEO José Antonio Ramos Calamonte said at the announcement of the deal that the move could herald the return of the Topshop brand to physical stores. Asos will continue to sell Topshop and Topman items on its website but will now pay a royalty fee, which it said would impact profits by between $13 million and $26 million a year.

The deal values Topshop a little shy of $240 million, significantly down from the nearly $350 million paid to acquire the brand from administrators to Green’s Arcadia empire in 2021, along with Miss Selfridge and HIIT. That total of $435 million also included around $85 million of stock.

Asos will retain a 22.5% stake and its existing Topshop partner, Seattle-headquartered department store group Nordstrom, just over 2%, with Heartland controlling the remainder. Shares in Asos are up nearly% today after the announcement, recovering it to around it’s year-ago value.

It will relaunch Topshop.com as part of the venture, but has no plans to open physical stores at the moment, the company said.

Topshop Stores Return

However, Calamonte speculated that Topshop could yet return to the high street with its own stores, as part of the deal with Bestseller, as well as selling apparel through more department stores, as it currently does through its relationship with Nordstrom.

“We might open stores. We will consider it for sure but we have no specific agreement to open a certain number,” Calamonte said as he insisted that Asos had put the Topshop brand “back in shape for growth”, having worked to optimize its supply chain, merchandise quality and creative direction.

He said the deal came about after unsolicited approaches and that Bestseller’s was chosen as the best offer to “accelerate and make the brand more accessible for consumers”.

Heartland is an investment and holding company representing the interests of the Holch Povlsen family, and their family business Bestseller, and has completed the deal through its subsidiary Aktieslskabet. It holds a 28% stake in Asos.