No further Mulberry moves for now, Frasers says
Retail group Frasers has announced that it will make no further offer to acquire the shares it does not already hold in leathergoods brand Mulberry.
Frasers already owns 37% of Mulberry shares. At the end of September, the leathergoods company said it wanted to raise £10 million in new capital and quickly received a formal offer in which Frasers said it would pay £50 million to acquire the whole of the company. It then submitted a revised offer on October 10, which the board of Mulberry has rejected.
Although it said it will not persist in trying to require full ownership of Mulberry for now, Frasers said it remained “a long-term supporter of the brand”. But it said it had become “increasingly concerned over the governance of Mulberry” and wanted to have representation on the board of the leathergoods brand.
Mulberry said its directors had reached the decision that the possible offer Frasers had proposed was untenable. It said the company would now focus its attention on driving the commercial performance of the business.
The injection of new capital came earlier in October from Mulberry’s majority shareholder, Singapore-based investment group, Challice Limited.
Mulberry reiterated its belief that the combination of the appointment of a new chief executive in July, Andrea Baldo, a new debt facility and the raising of the new capital would make sure the company was on a firm footing to achieve future growth.
