Lectra announces acquisition of Retviews

The transaction involves the acquisition of 70 per cent of Retviews for €8 million. The acquisition of the remainder of capital and voting rights will take place three times in July 2020, July 2021 and July 2022 for amounts of about 0.9 times 2020 revenues, 0.7 times 2021 revenues and 0.5 times 2022 revenues, respectively. These amounts will come from Lectra’s available cash, with no financing from the bank, said Lectra in a press release.

“By uniting with Retviews, we confirm once again our ambition to help our customers to quickly enter the era of Industry 4.0. Thanks to artificial intelligence algorithms, Retviews’ offer enables brands to make the best decisions at every moment throughout the life cycle of a product, in order to optimise their collections,” said Daniel Harari, chairman and chief executive officer, Lectra. “We are delighted to welcome the talented teams of Retviews. Together, we will create synergies with Lectra’s current offer, develop their technology and market their solution to our fashion customers worldwide, thanks notably to our 32 sales and services subsidiaries covering more than 100 countries.”

“In a few months, Retviews has become the leader of automated benchmarking in fashion in France and Belgium,” said Loïc Winckelmans, co-founder and chief executive officer, Retviews. “By joining forces with Lectra, we are convinced that we will benefit from its expertise to bring new innovations to fashion brands that will enable them to deliver products to the market that constantly meet consumers’ expectations.”

“Fashion companies are sitting on massive volumes of data that have tremendous value. They will only be able to exploit them by deploying artificial intelligence and big data,” said Lorenzo Pellizzari, co-founder and R&D director, Retviews. “With Lectra, we are going to enable brands to make a difference. We are looking forward to working on the development of new offers integrated with those of Lectra.”

For companies that breathe life into our wardrobes, car interiors, furniture and more, Lectra is crafting the premium technologies that facilitate the digital transformation of their industry. Founded in 1973, today Lectra has 32 subsidiaries across the globe, serving customers in over 100 countries. (PC)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India