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#The Wall Street Journal: Saks e-commerce unit looks to go public at valuation near $6 billion

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“#The Wall Street Journal: Saks e-commerce unit looks to go public at valuation near $6 billion”

IPO could take place in first half of 2022

The fast-growing e-commerce business of luxury retailer Saks Fifth Avenue is aiming to go public soon at a valuation roughly triple what it was pegged at earlier this year, in a sign of the boom times for online department-store sales.

Saks is interviewing potential underwriters this week for an initial public offering that could take place in the first half of 2022 and targets a valuation of around $6 billion, people familiar with the matter said. It was last valued at $2 billion in March.

Meeting with bankers is typically one of the first steps toward a listing, though there are no guarantees Saks will move forward with one or receive such a valuation. Market conditions and other unpredictable factors heavily influence IPO plans.

An IPO would be the second phase of a deal struck earlier this year that separated the e-commerce business from Saks’ slower-growing bricks-and-mortar retail operations. The move, meant to help fuel the digital unit’s growth, prompted an activist investor to call for Macy’s Inc.
M,
+4.02%
to do the same last week.

Saks’s parent, HBC, was taken private in early 2020.

An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.

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