Michael Kors edges closer to owning Jimmy Choo

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Aug 21, 2017

It’s been all quiet on the Jimmy Choo-Michael Kors front for almost a month but it looks like everything is on track for the US firm to take over the UK luxury label. The Michael Kors suggestion that it could raise its almost-£900 million offer if another bidder emerged now seems to be a non-starter.

On Monday (August 21) the companies published details of how Kors will take over Choo. The cash acquisition will happen under a Scheme of Arrangement, which is a court-approved agreement between a company and its shareholders.

Jimmy Choo’s directors said Monday that they “consider the acquisition to be in the best interests of the [company’s] shareholders taken as a whole” and are unanimously recommending that they vote in favour of the Scheme.

For the deal to go through, the shareholders will need to approve it at the Court Meeting on September 18 and by the passing of a Special Resolution at the Jimmy Choo General Meeting on the same day.

That should mean the Scheme becoming effective during Q4, although we don’t know exactly when.

What it will mean is Michael Kors starting 2018 with a major new string to its bow. The company that is undeniably strong in bags and watches doesn’t have a similar high profile so far in shoes, but Jimmy Choo will add that.

It will also add back some of the luxury lustre that analysts said the Kors company has lost in recent years as handbag sales exploded and the brand became a mainstay of discount-happy department stores.