Boohoo has this morning proposed a third new member for Revolution’s board, despite the beauty retailer slamming its attempted boardroom coup yesterday and labelling the fashion pureplay’s approach as “value-destructive, opportunistic and self-serving”.
Boohoo confirmed today that former THG Beauty chief executive Rachel Horsefield will “be included in the future independent board appointment process”.
Boohoo said in the statement: “Boohoo continues to strongly believe that a senior leadership team with the right retail, ecommerce and consumer brands experience is required to deliver value for all shareholders and take Revolution Beauty into its next phase, which must focus on growth.”
This comes after Revolution Beauty published a strongly worded note to the City on Wednesday morning and lashed out at Boohoo, saying the attempted takeover threatens to reverse its turnaround and potential readmission to the stock exchange, and could lead to destruction of value for shareholders.
It also said that Boohoo’s attempted takeover “could simply be part of an attempt to distract its own shareholders from the various issues that Boohoo itself is facing”, such as its own recent dip in share price and apparent opposition among shareholders to the re-election of co-founder Carol Kane.
Revolution Beauty said it feared that Boohoo was trying to “force the Group into administration for the purposes of acquiring it at the lowest price” – listing its acquisition of the likes of Karen Millen, Coast and Nasty Gal.
It also questioned Boohoo’s assertion that a takeover would see it put in place a “senior leadership team with the right ecommerce and consumer brands experience” – noting it is exclusively a pureplay business with no real experience of managing a store estate.
Revolution Beauty also intimated that some of its shareholders may be working in concert with Boohoo clandestinely given its “aggressive public campaign”.
“It would be surprising if Boohoo, with a shareholding of just 26.6%, would launch such an aggressive public campaign without the support of, or having first consulted with, other major shareholders”.
Despite all of this, Revolution Beauty said its current directors “continue to be prepared to engage with Boohoo in good faith and in a constructive manner, to avoid the destruction of value for all shareholders”.
The beauty retailer’s chief executive Bob Holt said: “We have a clear strategy, ongoing momentum and a highly relevant and attractive customer offer, demonstrated by the encouraging recent trading performance of the business.
“While we operate an omnichannel approach, our future growth is first and foremost via a global retailer strategy. This is clearly at odds with Boohoo’s entirely online model.
“Since joining Revolution Beauty as chief executive, I have worked closely with our chief financial officer Elizabeth Lake to strengthen the company’s internal controls and ensure we are acting in the interests of all our shareholders.
“This is an inherently strong business which, due to previous management, is now significantly undervalued and whose shares remain suspended from trading. It is evident that Boohoo is seeking opportunistically to take advantage of this situation.
“Together with the rest of the board, I remain highly confident in the future growth prospects of the company, and we are focused on ensuring that Revolution Beauty is in the best position possible to deliver within a large and attractive market.”
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