Mr Price set to acquire homeware retailer Yuppiechef

One of South Africa's biggest retail groups, The Mr Price Group has announced that it has entered into an agreement to purchase kitchen and homeware retailer Yuppiechef.

The acquisition will provide Mr Price with 100% of the brand, this will include both the online portion of the Yuppiechef business and the seven physical stores operated by the homeware retailer.

Yuppiechef was founded in 2006 with a vision to build a platform for the distribution of aspirational kitchen and homeware brands.

The brand expanded into physical stores in 2017, it still sees 70% of its turnover from e-commerce.

In the announcement, Mr Price said that the purchase of the company will give it access to a higher customer LSM.

“Within the homeware market, the opportunity to gain access to a higher LSM customer base, enabling growth of its share-of-wallet through aspirational value spending, was identified,” the company said in a statement.

Mr Price Chief Mark Blair says that the company gives My Price more potential for growth in online retail.

“Yuppiechef gives us another platform to escalate our ambitions in online retail and enables us to be strategically positioned for further growth,” Blair said.

Yuppiechef co-founder and Chief Andrew Smith added that the acquisition will give the company the resources to grow.

“Yuppiechef will benefit from our financial strength to accelerate growth plans which include significantly broadening the product assortment into areas where we have well-established skills and expanding its physical presence beyond the currently limited number of stores."

“The timing is right for Yuppiechef to move forward with its growth ambitions with a partner who has a shared vision and the resources to help achieve this,” Smith said in a statement.

Mr Price added that the Yuppiechef management team will continue to run the business with the full support of the group’s executive team.

 

Written by: Gabriella Steyn.

Guzzle Media