Redcats Group puts on weight

The takeover of United Retail Group and its 483 Avenue stores is the latest step in Redcats Group's advance into a "large size" market which keeps putting on more weight.

 

Redcats Group's recent takeover of United Retail Group for over 200 million dollars represents an excellent exter-nal growth operation. United Retail Group specialises in the sale of women's large size ready-to-wear; with a sales network of 483 stores under the Avenue banner covering 37 states. In 2006, United Retail Group recorded a turnover of 462 M$. Thierry Falque-Pierrotin, Redcats Group CEO, comments: “Incorporating Avenue stores bring us a new brand and a complementary channel in the women's large sizes segment". This acquisition rein-forces one of the strong points of the Redcats USA division: large size. With its Roaman’s, Woman Within and Jessica London brands, Redcats USA is already one of the top ten players in catalogue and Internet sales of women's  large size. Now, with its store networks, United Retail Group allows the Redcats division to become totally multi-channel and brings a new younger, more fashion-conscious clientele with greater buying power.

The segment shapes up
This acquisition constitutes the latest stage in Redcats Group's development into the very lucrative segment of large size. The United States market in women's ready-to-wear alone is estimated at 19 billion dollars. An NPD Group study shows that it is growing at an annual rate of 5%. 40 million Americans are overweight or obese, size 46 and over. This fundamental trend can also be observed in Europe. According to TNS Worldpanel Fashion¹, the number of large size purchasers has grown 50% between 2000 and 2004 and now makes up 15% of the market. According to the same study, large size customers make up 22% of female and 39% of male consumers (over size 50). This market is naturally becoming more and more competitive, even if home shopping is carving out a lion's share with over 25% of spending. Redcats Group has every intention of strengthening this leadership with in-creased initiatives. First results from OneStopPlus.com, America's first mastersite opened a year ago to bring to-gether large size products from all Redcats USA's brands, are very encouraging. In Scandinavia, Ellos has re-cently done the same with its store concept known as “Plus Collection”, regularly refreshed with new inter season models. In France, La Redoute's specialized brand, Taillissime, continues to set the tone for the market. For the 2008 spring / summer season, the brand has invited Marianne James to sublimate her collections by creating a wardrobe in its image. Its declared ambition is to break down fashion diktats and give the floor to the well-padded who have made up their minds to come out into the open!

 

¹ TNS Worldpanel Fashion makes a year-round study of the buying behaviour of 8,000 representative French households in all sectors of the textile market (clothing, shoes, accessories and household linen).