Retail Apparel Group, a leading specialty menswear retailer in Australia and New Zealand with more than 400 stores and high-profile store brands such as Tarocash, yd, Connor and Rockwear, has been sold at an enterprise value of $302.5 million to The Foschini Group of South Africa.

The retail business was sold by private equity firm Navis Capital which first bought a majority stake in the fashion and apparel group in 2011.

Philip Latham and Ravi Jeyaraj, partners of Navis Capital, said their objective in the RAG investment was to assist management in expanding the store network of existing brands and launch new brands, taking advantage of RAG’s strong systems and processes.

“This, coupled with management’s fine stewardship of the business, has been fundamental to RAG’s consistent and reliable growth over many years.”

Gary Novis will continue as CEO of Retail Apparel Group under the new arrangements, together with the existing senior management team.

“We enjoyed working with the Navis team and have appreciated their support over the last six years. We are excited to be partnering with The Foschini Group, a pre-eminent retailer in South Africa, UK and Australia, and we look forward to further expanding and enhancing our offering with their support,’’ Mr Novis said.

The Foschini Group currently owns 22 retail brands, covering men’s and women’s clothing, homewares, jewellery, sporting and outdoor apparel, and more than 3,000 outlets in Africa and around the world and has been planning to expand to Australia for several years.

Chief Executive Officer of TFG, Mr Doug Murray, said “We are excited to be able to realise our ambition to expand into Australasia through the very successful RAG business and its well established and experienced management team”.

The Retail Apparel Group is reported to be on target to post double digit increases in revenue and profit this year, despite the malaise in the $300 billion retail sector that has seen a string of fashion chains collapse since Christmas.

[Source:- theaustralian]

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