9 million members
Department store owner Hudson’s Bay, which also owns Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor and which acquired Inno’s parent company Galeria Kaufhof last year, has now bought Gilt Groupe Inc.. That company owns the closed fashion web shop Gilt.com and it now became part of Hudson’s Bay for 250 million dollars (229 million euro).
The Toronto-based group wants to integrate Gilt.com, which has 9 million members and also ships to Belgium, into its outlet brand Saks Off 5th, while it is considering opening several Gilt concept shops in its department stores. Whether it will include it in its European stores, remains to be seen.
There were plenty of rumours several years ago that Gilt.com was preparing an IPO, when venture capitalists deemed the site to be worth 1.1 billion dollars, a lot more than its current price. Hudson’s Bay hopes to finalize the sale on 1 February and will pay for the deal in cash.
