Shares of clothing retailer Henderson fell in value on the first day of trading

The Henderson men’s clothing store chain raised almost 4 billion rubles during its IPO, which will be used, among other things, to open new sales points. According to Kommersant’s information, the main demand for the retailer’s shares came from retail investors, who have fewer and fewer investment instruments. Institutional investors, in turn, do not believe in the prospects of the offline clothing sales segment. They point out that a number of European brands, unable to withstand competition from online trading, ceased to exist.

Henderson held November 2 initial placement on the Moscow Exchange 13.9% of shares, earning 3.8 billion rubles, which will be used, among other things, to open new stores (the chain currently has 158 points of sale in 62 cities of Russia and two showrooms in Armenia). Investors were offered 4.4 million shares of the additional issue. Henderson’s main shareholder Ruben Harutyunyan, who owned 99.95% of the chain before the IPO, also sold 444 thousand of his shares for 300 million rubles. and provided shares worth RUB 495 million, increasing the size of the stabilization package from 10% to 15% of the base IPO size.

At the time of the IPO, Henderson’s capitalization amounted to RUB 24.3 billion. The retailer replaced its shares at the upper limit of the price range – 675 rubles. for paper. But during trading on the first day after the IPO, the maximum decline in quotations reached 8.6% of the offering price. In general, the first exchange session ended with a decrease of 0.75%, the total trading volume of the retailer’s shares amounted to 1.7 billion rubles. By the close of trading on November 2, its capitalization amounted to 24.12 billion rubles.

Henderson says that during the IPO they attracted more than 40 thousand new investors. But, according to a Kommersant source in the financial market, the retailer’s shares did not arouse much interest among institutional investors; the main demand was generated by individuals. This suggests that individuals have accumulated significant reserves of cash that need to be placed, explains Igor Smirnov, senior director for corporate ratings at Expert RA. Director of the ACRA corporate ratings group, Alexander Gushchin, believes that for individuals, buying shares in a clothing retailer is an understandable tool, in particular, due to brand recognition.

Another Kommersant interlocutor explains the low interest of institutional investors by the riskiness of the segment in which Henderson operates.

“All over the world, clothing chains are going bankrupt, as the segment is moving online,” he explains. Thus, recently in Germany the Deerberg chain announced its insolvency, in Holland – Scotch & Soda, in the UK – Arcadia Group (brands Topshop, Topman, Burton) and Debenhams.

Infoline predicts that by the end of 2023 in the Russian Federation, the retail sales market for men’s clothing and footwear will grow by 4.7%, to 755 billion rubles. According to Gazprombank senior analyst Marat Ibragimov, other Russian fashion retailers may also be thinking about IPOs. The Stockmann network told Kommersant that they do not yet plan to go public. Gloria Jeans did not respond to the request. In 2021 Melon Fashion Group (brands Befree, Love Republic, Zarina and Sela) planned IPO in 2023, but later abandoned these plans. The company declined to comment.

This year, Russian companies in other sectors are more active in public offerings. In October IT group “Astra” posted 5% shares and raised 3.5 billion rubles. Also in 2023, the Center for Genetics and Reproductive Medicine went public Genetico and “Smarttekhgroup” (brand CarMoney). An IPO of the Eurotrans gas station network, the Kaluga distillery Kristall and Sovcombank.

Daria Andrianova, Vitaly Gaidaev