Emaar Malls acuquired 51 percent stake in Namshi online fashion retailer

Emaar Malls has announced that it has acquired a 51 per cent stake in Namshi, the online retailer owned by Germany based Rocket Internet.

Emaar Malls will acquire a 51 percent stake in Namshi for 151 million dollars.

Five-year old Namshi made its first annual profit last year on revenues of Dh555m – which indicates it was valued at a multiple of 1.95 times net revenue.

Led by cofounders Hosam Arab, Faraz Khalid and Hisham Zarka, Namshi launched in 2012, and offers a range of over 50,000 products across more than 600 international and local fashion brands and its own private labels.

Rocket Internet said that it would continue to hold the remaining 49 percent as part of its larger Global Fashion Group operation — an entity it created back in 2014 to consolidate several of its many emerging market brands: Dafiti in South America, LaModa in Russia, The Iconic in Australia/New Zealand, and Zalora in South East Asia.

Emaar Malls, the shopping malls and retail business, majority-owned by property developer Emaar Properties, whose chairman is Mohamed Alabbar. Mr Alabbar also owns ecommerce website Noon.com which has recently acquired another eshop JadoPado.com.

The series of Alabbar’s acquisitions and business partnership follow the major acquisition of Souq.com by Amazon that happened late March. Back then, Emaar Malls had announced that it had also submitted an $800 million bid for the online retailer. This bid was said to be “in line with the strategy to align commerce with physical shopping” according to a statement released by Emaar Malls.