Accent Group to acquire Australian retailer Glue Store

Glue Store is a leading Australian youth apparel, shoe and accessory retailer offering an aspirational range spanning global street, fashion and sport cultures. Glue Store’s product range includes leading domestic and global brands and a portfolio of strong and growing owned vertical brands. Glue Store operates a network of 21 stores and an integrated online site, with around 500,000 loyalty programme members. The business generates annual sales of approximately $90 million, including $16.6 million of online sales.

As part of the acquisition, Accent will acquire all of NAL’s exclusive owned vertical brands, including Nude Lucy, Beyond Her, Lulu & Rose and Article One, which drive more than 25 per cent of total sales. NAL also has distribution rights for a strong portfolio of global brands, including Superga, Ellesse, Le coq sportif, Kappa, K-Way, Sebago and Napapijri. The sale agreement contemplates the transfer of these distribution rights to Accent, subject in each case, to usual brand owner consent.

The Next Athleisure business will become a new division within Accent named ‘Accent Lifestyle’ and Darren Todd, the current CEO of NAL, will join Accent as group general manager – Accent Lifestyle. As part of the transaction, offers of employment will be made to all NAL current team members.

Accent intends to pay the cash consideration for the acquisition from its existing finance facilities.

"The NAL acquisition is perfectly aligned to our strategy to grow our leadership position in the lifestyle and youth apparel market in Australia and New Zealand. Glue Store, along with the NAL wholesale and distribution business, provides an established and complimentary platform to accelerate our growing apparel business. It also comes with several exciting vertical owned brands, including Nude Lucy and Beyond Her, and a strong portfolio of global distributed brands. We see significant opportunity to leverage Accent’s retail expertise to improve the Glue Store customer experience and store profitability. The youth apparel market is highly fragmented with significant opportunity to grow the store network and capture market share over time," said Accent Group CEO Daniel Agostinelli.

Darren Todd, NAL CEO, said, “The move to Accent ownership represents a strong strategic alignment for the Next Athleisure business and the right next phase in the Next Athleisure growth plan that the team has been driving over the last two years.”

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RKS)