The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
TORONTO, Canada — Shopify Inc. is taking advantage of record prices to sell shares and keep up its brisk pace of growth.
The Ottawa-based e-commerce company will sell 5.5 million shares from its treasury, adding about 7 percent to the number in circulation. That would raise about $490 million based on current prices. Its stock was down less than 1 percent to $89.26 at 1:10 p.m. in New York after dropping as much as 9.8 percent earlier, the steepest intra-day decline since January 2016. The shares closed at an all-time high on Tuesday.
Shopify shares have more than doubled since the beginning of the year — making it the best-performing Canadian company worth more than C$1 billion — as it keeps beating expectations for how fast it can grow users and revenue. However that’s proving expensive: the company has said it won’t make a profit until the end of 2017.
Money from the sale will be used to boost network infrastructure, bolster marketing and fund potential future acquisitions, Shopify’s head of investor relations, Katie Keita, said in an emailed reply.
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“We’re growing quite rapidly,” Keita said. “This is a way to ensure we will be able to strengthen our balance sheet to fund various growth initiatives.”
Shopify’s major competitors are privately-held, and include Austin-based Bigcommerce Inc. and Campbell, California-based Magento Inc.
The deal follows a $329.9 million offering Shopify completed in August 2016. Shopify hired Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and CIBC Capital Markets to lead the new sale, the firm said in a statement Thursday. The company provides websites and payment services to merchants who want to sell online.
By Gerrit De Vynck, with assistance from Scott Deveau; editors: Jillian Ward, Jeanette Rodrigues and David Scanlan.
The algorithms TikTok relies on for its operations are deemed core to ByteDance overall operations, which would make a sale of the app with algorithms highly unlikely.
The app, owned by TikTok parent company ByteDance, has been promising to help emerging US labels get started selling in China at the same time that TikTok stares down a ban by the US for its ties to China.
Zero10 offers digital solutions through AR mirrors, leveraged in-store and in window displays, to brands like Tommy Hilfiger and Coach. Co-founder and CEO George Yashin discusses the latest advancements in AR and how fashion companies can leverage the technology to boost consumer experiences via retail touchpoints and brand experiences.
Four years ago, when the Trump administration threatened to ban TikTok in the US, its Chinese parent company ByteDance Ltd. worked out a preliminary deal to sell the short video app’s business. Not this time.