Kickstart, BPI invest in Zalora Philippines alongside parent

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Ayala Group will take a 43.3% stake, according to a media report linked from Zalora’s Twitter feed. In a separate disclosure Ayala’s property and mall development subsidiary Ayala Land said it will hold 1.9% of the company, leaving about 3.8% for BPI and Kickstart. Rocket Internet, Zalora’s founder and chief backer, will hold the remaining shares. It is not clear whether the German incubator will exit.

The transaction represents Ayala's first investment in the e-commerce industry, though Kickstart – which is owned by Ayala subsidiary Globe Telecom – participated in a round of undisclosed size last year for domestic real estate market place ZipMatch. Ayala sees Zalora as a way to enter the Philippines’ rapidly growing online retail space.

“We see the potential of e-commerce in the country, and believe that the Ayala group can benefit and add tremendous value to Zalora. With resources in banking, real estate and telecommunications, the investment presents new opportunities for Ayala to generate synergies throughout the e-commerce value chain,” said Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, CEO of Ayala.

The transaction is the latest in a string of strategic investments in Rocket’s e-commerce ventures, many of which have seen the incubator exit its stakes.

Last April China's Alibaba Group paid about $1 billion for a majority stake in Lazada, which has a presence in six Southeast Asian countries. In July, Flipkart-backed fashion retailer Myntra bought Rocket-backed rival Jabong at a valuation of $70 million, and in December Rocket sold its entire stake in food delivery app Foodpanda to the company’s main global competitor Delivery Hero.

Zalora is part of Global Fashion Group, an emerging markets-focused online fashion portal formed by Rocket in 2014 by combining five separate brands including Jabong. Rocket announced in April that it had cut its valuation of GFG from EUR3.1 billion ($3.28 billion) to EUR1 billion, in line with Swedish investor AB Kinnevik, which had earlier cut its valuation of the group from EUR1.7 billion. At the same time Rocket and Kinnevik announced they would invest another EUR300 million in GFG.

Kinnevik has also exited half of its stake in Rocket itself. In a disclosure the firm announced that it had sold 10.9 million shares in Rocket at EUR19.25 each to unnamed institutional investors, for a total of EUR209 million. The sale will leave Kinnevik with 10.9 million shares, representing a 6.6% stake.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Technology
• Consumer
• Expansion
• Philippines
• Rocket Internet
• TMT
• Growth capital