Platinum Equity Announced Acquisition Of Helong, An Underwear And Swimsuit Manufacturer

PE was once a fashion brand.

The investment community wild consumer bar learned that platinum equity, a private equity fund, recently announced its acquisition of a controlling stake in hop Lun (Hong Kong) Ltd., a underwear and swimsuit manufacturer. After the deal, founder Erik Ryd will retain a significant stake and continue to lead the company forward.

As early as February this year, Helong group was rumored to be seeking a sale with a valuation of more than $500 million. The deal will be completed by platinum equity's Singapore office, BDA partners Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc Served as financial advisor and is expected to complete in the third quarter of 2022.

This is An underwear company founded in Hong Kong, China in 1992 , founder Erik Ryd is a Swiss businessman. Starting from a OEM factory, Erik Ryd led Helong group to take root in Guangdong step by step, extending its production line to inland and overseas. In 2002, Helong launched a famous brand 6IXTY8IGHT From then on, he has established a firm foothold in the underwear industry. After 30 years, a PE company became the owner.

　　 Underwear sold in old foreign port

　　 Top three in the world, now sold to PE

In 1992, Erik Ryd, a Swiss businessman, came to Hong Kong, China. At that time, the upsurge of reform and opening up was in full swing, and Chinese talents were just beginning to wear modern underwear. Erik Ryd saw the huge potential of the underwear market and set up Hoprun.

Starting from OEM for European high-end underwear brands, Helong has enjoyed the dividend of the times. In 1999, Erik Ryd struck while the iron was hot, and established the first wholly-owned manufacturing factory in Chang'an Town, Dongguan, namely, Helong garment (Dongguan) Co., Ltd.

Guangdong is a major underwear production gathering place in China. Dongguan factory has brought stable rear resources to Helong. Erik Ryd continues to March inland and has built four wholly-owned factories in Heyuan City, Guangdong Province, QUANNAN county and Anyuan County of Jiangxi Province. In a short period of three years, target expanded its first customers in Europe from the United States.

With the increasing demand for underwear in China, Erik Ryd realized that OEM was not a long-term solution. However, the transformation is not easy, many enterprises that used to make a living by OEM export have fallen on the road of transformation. How to transform smoothly and make a brand with recognition to enter the domestic market has become a difficult problem for many underwear enterprises.

In 2002, Erik Ryd's new brand 6ixty8ight was born in France. The brand is fashionable and simple, and the public is affordable. It is aimed at young women and has a distinctive northern European style in its design. The name 6ixty8ight comes from Chinese numerology, The Cantonese pronunciation of numbers 6 and 8 is similar to "all the way", implying "eternal good luck".

In 2003, Erik Ryd established its headquarters in Hong Kong and opened its first 6ixty8ight store in Beijing, which was very popular for a while. In this way, Helong officially entered the vision of Chinese consumers. Three years later, 6ixty8ight expanded its product line, and successively launched products such as tops, dresses, jeans, home wear and accessories, and Erik Ryd recreated the success of that year.

Today, 6ixty8ight has become one of the fastest growing underwear brands in Asia, with more than 300 stores all over the world, and Helong has become the third largest underwear manufacturer in the world. It has eight production bases in China, Bangladesh and Indonesia, and has established branches in London, New York and Paris, employing nearly 30000 employees worldwide.

Erik Ryd said in the acquisition that: "I'm proud of what we've achieved over the past three decades and firmly believe that platinum is the company's partner in the next phase of development." Now, with platinum's operational capabilities, I wonder if Erik Ryd can move forward to the next 30 years again.

According to the data, platinum equity, which acquired Helong group this time, was founded in 1995. It is a global investment company, with assets of nearly 36 billion US dollars under management and a portfolio of about 50 operating companies. Over the past 27 years, platinum has completed more than 350 acquisitions in manufacturing, media entertainment, technology and communications.

　　 A piece of underwear wears out hundreds of billions of rivers and lakes

　　 VC / PE comes

Why does PE also like underwear business?

This is not an exception. In June 2022, when a number of consumer enterprises were in a financial crisis, a underwear brand specialized in selling large cups of bras "Milk sugar pie" The capital of nearly 100 million yuan was invested by China capital and CNKI. Founded in 2015, milk sugar pie focused on the big cup underwear as a subdivision track at the beginning of the brand creation.

The founder of Dabai is a father-in-law. Because his wife couldn't buy a suitable bra during her pregnancy, Dabai saw the blank market and came up with the idea of making underwear for big cup women. As soon as the brand was launched, it was favored by big breasted female consumers. In 2021, the milk sugar pie entered a rapid growth period of 200%, Gmv reached 300 million.

Time goes on, July 2021, Neiwai inside and outside We completed the d-round financing of US $100 million. Inside and outside the first from women's rimless underwear, focusing on comfort, positioned at 25-40 years old new middle-class female users. Since its establishment in 2014, eight rounds of financing have been completed both at home and abroad, and have been warmly welcomed by Qiming capital, Zhenge fund, Carlyle investment, Cifu capital, Xiangfeng investment and other institutions.

In January of the same year, another major No size brand Ubras After completing the equity financing of IDG capital investment, the senior management team of ubras is all female, and the founder concon has many years of working experience in the first-line underwear brand. Since its establishment in 2016, ubras has completed three rounds of financing, with investors of Sequoia China, IDG capital, today capital and venture capital queen Xu Xin.

also Net red underwear brand jiaonei 。 In November 2020, jiaonei completed a round of financing of hundreds of millions of yuan, with a post investment valuation of 2.5 billion yuan, becoming an underwear company with high valuation in the past decade. Jiaonei is positioned in the label less underwear, and once won the angel round investment of RMB 10 million from Zhongding capital in 2016.

With 15 years of experience in the design industry, Zang Chongyu and Li Zechen, the two founders of jiaonei, realized a common but rarely brand focused problem: the itchy sewing label on the close fitting clothes. After improving this, the two launched a new product, and the brand's sales volume will be already in 2020 Up to 1 billion yuan 。

In addition, many underwear brands, such as plain muscle products targeting high-end underwear, livary Mio Lixing, which focuses on scene dressing, and Xiangmi boudoir, which specializes in sinking the market, have obtained financing in the past three years, with the amount of financing ranging from tens of millions to hundreds of millions.

At present, the underwear market has reached 100 billion yuan. According to the "Research Report on China's women's underwear industry" released by iResearch, the market scale of China's women's underwear industry will reach 127.5 billion yuan , which is expected to reach in 2026 174.6 billion yuan 。

And the rise of a new underwear brand, attracting VC / PE people to come, also just confirmed "Her economy" Gradually upgrade. Women began to pursue the appreciation of the opposite sex "Please yourself" Consumption can be seen from the diversity of underwear. In this era, the pattern of underwear and consumer groups began to be gradually subdivided, and there will be a unicorn.