Next acquires £128m stake in Reiss from private equity firm Warburg Pincus

Next has bought out the private equity firm for £128m and the terms of the transaction, which is expected to be complete in October, have been agreed with the Reiss family.

As part of the deal, the Reiss family’s holding will increase to 22% while the Reiss management team will hold 6% equity in the company.

Following the completion of the deal, financial trading updates from Reiss are expected to be consolidated into Next’s announcements. Reiss chief executive Chrisos Angelides will remain in his role.

Next said the move follows “a period of strong continued growth for Reiss” as the fashion retailer posted a 26.4% increase in sales to reach £324.6m for the year to January 28, 2023.

Reiss also posted profit before tax for the period of £51.6m, up more than 50% year on year.

Next chief executive Lord Simon Wolfson said: “Reiss has performed exceptionally well since we first invested in March 2021. This success has been driven by the strength of its brand, first-class management and the benefits of Total Platform; we look forward to continuing to develop the business with Christos and the Reiss team.

“Warburg Pincus has been an excellent partner throughout the term of our investment and we have enjoyed working with them during the last two years.”

Angelides said: “We are appreciative of the excellent partnership with Warburg Pincus over the past seven years. Their expertise has been instrumental to our sustained development and they have been a strong and trusted partner.

“We look forward to continuing to focus on creating authentic and timeless collections for our customers and over the next few months we will be launching a number of new initiatives that will both expand the breadth and choice of our collections worldwide.”