Friday, October 30, 2009

Kathmandu IPO: Jan Cameron lands a blow to IPO

I have been covering the Kathmandu IPO over the last few weeks and am working on the prospectus in between changing nappies and trying to get some sleep.

News out today that Jan Cameron, former owner of Kathmandu, will set up her own outdoor clothing chain in New Zealand and Australia is clearly bad news for the IPO:

Now she has revealed she is well advanced in plans to set up an outdoor clothing business of 60 stores - 30 in New Zealand and 30 in Australia - to compete with Kathmandu next year. She said she was earmarking A$27 million for the venture.

She was even dismissive of the Kathmandu model of regular 50 per cent off sales.

"I imagine that if we are offering a similar product at competitive prices, at everyday low prices, around 50 to 60 per cent lower than Kathmandu, I imagine that might be quite attractive," she said. "I really love the product and the industry and I see an opportunity with a different model.'' More at Stuff.co.nz

Cameron is an individual not to be underestimated when it comes to competition. She has made a career out of buying cheap assets and making money from them and her retail prowess when it comes to starting a business is almost unparalleled.

She recently bought up large stakes in Pumpkin Patch Ltd [PPL.NZ] Postie Plus Group [PPG.NZ] and purchased cheap retail sites in Australia abandoned by The Warehouse Group [WHS.NZ] a few years ago and set up a cut price chain.

Her move back into outdoor retailing will affect the value of the Kathmandu IPO to investors because of the direct competition with her old company.

All the figures contained in the prospectus, on which the value of the company is based, are now largely academic due to the new entrant and prospective investors will now have to reassess their position as they contemplate writing out their IPO cheques.

Disclosure: I own PPL and PPG shares.


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Kathmandu @ Share Investor

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Download the detailed Kathmandu Value Cruncher Report - Requires free registration Share Investor Forum to download
Download Kathmandu IPO Prospectus

Discuss Kathmandu at
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2 comments:

  1. The competition clause issue is a bit surprising. I guess Jan has a really good lawyer and just loves paying Lawyer's fees.

    I would love if Jan's announcements might be able to bring the issue price of the IPO down to give investors half a chance and to reduce the profit made by Goldman and the Private Equity firm.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Interesting that there is little comparison of financials other than with 2009 and 2010 - a year that is merely a projection - in the first few pages of the prospectus. Lots of lovely pictures of what they sell though.

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