He himself hasn’t been to New York for a long time, due to the corona of course. For this, his company made its way to Wall Street, with great success. Michael Kliger, 54, head of luxury online retailer Mytheresa, rang the bell on the New York Stock Exchange only virtually in January. He could hardly have dreamed of what came next. The shares of the Internet company, which is headquartered in Aschheim near Munich, rose rapidly by almost a third when it went public and are still at just under 30 dollars. Mytheresa is thus worth almost three billion dollars on the stock exchange – a lot of money for a German start-up that emerged from a Munich designer boutique called “Theresa”. In 2006 an online shop started in the space directly above the shop, and everything quickly became much larger and more international.
The latest success is also the work of Kliger. The smart manager came to Mytheresa in 2015, shortly before that, the American luxury department store group Neiman Marcus had taken over the small online company from Bavaria. Until then, Kliger had worked for the Ebay platform, before that he worked for the consulting firms Accenture and McKinsey and for the retailer Real. Not particularly dazzling addresses for the luxury fashion world, but Kliger made the right decisions, even in difficult times. Because Neiman Marcus ran into major economic problems and even went bankrupt in the USA. North American financial investors took Mytheresa out of the bankruptcy estate and finally brought the company public a few weeks ago in New York. Most of the proceeds were used to repay debts, the rest is to be used for the planned international expansion.
The management of Mytheresa was virtually present on a giant screen when the company went public in New York in January.
(Foto: Courtney Crow/AP)
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“We only follow the stock exchange price here from time to time, otherwise you will go crazy,” says Kliger. He knows that the current listing is only a snapshot, and that the IPO is only a stage for the company. Good numbers are not an end in themselves, but the result of good work. “Do I wake up in the morning and the first thing I think about is the company’s market value? No,” says the Mytheresa boss, who, like the 860 employees, was able to buy shares. The company just got very positive quarterly figures reported. Sales grew by a third from October to December 2020, and more than 100,000 customers made their first purchases at Mytheresa. And there is even an operating profit, which also increased significantly. Of course, Mytheresa benefited from the pandemic, and many stores around the world are closed.
Mytheresa specializes in large and well-known luxury brands such as Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Prada, Burberry and Valentino. On average, customers ordered clothing worth 15,000 euros per year from the online fashion retailer, which now also sells items for men and children. “Evening wear wasn’t exactly a hit lately. Fewer bags and high-heels were sold,” says Kliger. For this, things made of cashmere and comfortable clothing were in great demand.
Will growth slow down when people go to business around the world again? Kliger believes that things will continue to improve anyway. The market for online luxury shopping will triple in the next few years, experts said. And when parties and social events are possible again, the demand for expensive outfits will rise again. Mytheresa will also benefit from this – in New York and everywhere else.
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