Turkey’s biggest Islamic fashion e-commerce retailer Sefamerve.com hired Pragma Corporate Finance to manage the sale of a significant stake in the company.
The business is in talks with international investors including a sovereign wealth fund from Asia and private equity firms from the US and Middle East, Metin Okur, chairman and founder of Istanbul-based EST Marjinal Medikal Tanitim AS, the owner of the Sefamerve.com brand, said by phone. Kerim Kotan, managing director of Pragma, is leading negotiations with potential investors, Okur said.
Sefamerve.com is valued at more than $500mn and the company’s owner is considering the sale of a majority stake, one person familiar with the talks said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. Okur declined to comment on the valuation or the amount of the stake to be sold.
Established in 2012, Sefamerve.com has been approached by some sovereign wealth funds and financial sponsors over the past three years as the company reached $100mn sales last year, said Okur. The retailer has more than doubled sales in each of the past two years and “I don’t see any reason why Sefamerve can’t become a company with a turnover of $500mn by 2023 on the back of such annual growth,” he said.
The company has 5mn registered users and 1.5mn online customers in more than 100 countries outside of Turkey, including the US, UK and Germany, Okur said. The company has positive earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, or Ebitda, and doesn’t need cash, he said. Sefamerve plans to open offline businesses in some Middle Eastern countries including Egypt, he said.
Turkey was the biggest consumer of Muslim consumer clothing with a market of $25.7bn in 2015, followed by the UAE with $20.6bn, according to the latest data on the State of the Global Islamic Economy report. The Islamic clothing market is projected to rise to $368bn by 2021 from $243bn in 2015, the report said.