Yusaku Maezawa acquires stakes in Japanese apparel brands

19 Aug '20

1 min read

Pic: Shutterstock

Yusaku Maezawa, the Japanese billionaire who sold his online apparel company to Masayoshi Son and is preparing to ride around the moon on Elon Musk’s spacecraft, rejoined the country’s business scene recently by acquiring stakes in fashion retailers United Arrows Ltd and Adastria Co. The holdings are worth a combined ¥7.6 billion ($71 million).

This makes Maezawa the third-largest shareholder in the brick-and-mortar fashion retailers.

While the stock purchases were for investment purposes, Maezawa may also "give advice or make proposals to management to improve enterprise value if needed, assuming a friendly relationship can be created with management,” japanese media reported quoting corporate filings.

Both companies sell their goods on Zozotown, the fashion portal that Maezawa sold to SoftBank Group Corp. unit Z Holdings Inc. last year. United Arrows and Adastria could both use the help of a deep-pocketed investor. Like many Japanese clothing retailers, their shares have been devastated by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

While Maezawa stepped down from managing Zozo after the Z Holdings takeover, he retains a 17.5 per cent stake that reportedly is the source of much of his wealth.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)

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