#Anniversary - 365 Days after ABOUT YOU's Listing

Exactly 365 days ago, ABOUT YOU had its debut on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on 16 June 2021.

🔔  365 days since we rang the opening  bell for the first trading day in Hamburg.

💬  365 days of insightful discussions on the equity story with investors and analysts.

🚀  365 days in a turbulent market, which our team defied with strong full-year results.

To mark the anniversary, it is time for me to look back on ABOUT YOU's first year on the stock market and share some thoughts for many market years to come:

#Review - Are we satisfied with our first year on the stock market?

Yes and no. Only eight years after founding ABOUT YOU, I am proud of the listing in June 2021. Together with my Co-Founders and Co-CEOs, Hannes and Sebastian, we wished for more visibility and better access in the capital market to further fuel our growth. So, we came to the capital market with ambitious plans and can conclude that we are very well on track to achieve them.  For the previous financial year until the end of February 2022, we were able to record a significant revenue growth of +48.5% year-on-year to EUR 1.73 billion with ABOUT YOU. Therefore, the guided revenue range of +40–50% announced at the time of ABOUT YOU’s listing landed at the upper end, despite the difficult market environment. We even exceeded our profitability target of EUR -70 million with an adjusted EBITDA of EUR -66.9 million. That is a huge success in an environment where most companies fell short of their forecasts.

Given the strong financial performance, we would not have expected our share price to cut to less than a third in its first year on the stock exchange. We thought that delivering on our goals would lead to an increasing share price. But in fact, we were wrong in this assumption. After a +10.8% climb on the first day of trading, ABOUT YOU was admitted to the SDAX® index in September and reached its all-time high of EUR 26.10 in November 2021. After that, it was a pretty linear curve in the wrong direction. How significantly the macro-economic environment penalises almost all growth stocks has unfortunately become evident in the price decrease of our shares in the past months. That this is not driven by ABOUT YOU’s individual performance, but rather by a very negative sentiment towards our industry, becomes clear when comparing our performance with that of our public peers:

A small consolation: in comparison, ABOUT YOU has outperformed the public peers. Indexing other digital fashion platforms or tech companies, which went public in 2021, all of us have experienced steep downward trends. Ultimately, to my mind, ABOUT YOU’s outperformance vs peers proves that the resilience and adaptability of our digital business model and the delivery of our promises have been well-appreciated by the capital market by reducing our value less.

 #Now - Can we defy today’s challenging market developments?

Yes. While today's market environment of expected interest rate hikes, inflation, supply chain disruptions, war, and restraint in consumer spending continues to put pressure on growth stocks, we truly appreciate the ease of Covid-19-related restrictions and welcome the return of events and parties. Finally, our customers are once again presented with occasions to refresh their wardrobes. For example, dresses – as our top-selling product category before the Covid-19 pandemic – are back in their baskets more frequently. At the same time, however, we are observing an "outdoor rush", with boutiques and brick-and-mortar experiencing strong footfall again after two years.

At least the latter development should soon normalise in view of the fundamentally high online penetration of our young and digital-native target group. In general, we feel well-positioned with our customer structure and business model, digitising the traditional shopping stroll and creating a personalised shopping experience on the users’ smartphones, and can react to the fluctuations. For example, if deliveries of sneakers are delayed, we preferably display outfits with sandals in ABOUT YOU’s online shop.

We are determined to defy the turbulence in the market in the current financial year to deliver strong business results. With the new revenue guidance for this financial year 2022/2023, we underline that ABOUT YOU is growing faster than competitors in the difficult market environment. The expected growth range of 25–35% will increase our revenue to more than EUR 2 billion.

#Outlook - What can be expected in the future?

Of course, we take the lowered share price very seriously and do all we can to turn it around. Consequently, we reiterate our targets set before the listing to break even on adjusted Group EBITDA already in the next financial year and generate a Group revenue of EUR 5 billion only two years later, in the financial year 2025/2026. And we remain confident in our vision to become the global #1 fashion platform. Expecting the European fashion industry to reach a volume of EUR 385 billion still in 2022 (vs EUR >400 billion pre-Covid), we see immense opportunities for ABOUT YOU and long-term shareholder value in the future.

For break-even, we will focus on scaling ABOUT YOU’s 26 European markets in a capital- and marketing-efficient way. Other drivers are to continuously optimise our online shop, expand our shop assortment and further develop our profitable B2B business with the SCAYLE Commerce Engine SaaS solution. After SCAYLE generated a revenue of EUR 67 million and an exceptional adjusted EBITDA margin of 38.0% in the financial year 2021/2022, it pursues ambitious plans, such as further expanding into other countries and lifestyle verticals.

To sustainably strengthen the share price, we are in constant dialogue with investors and analysts. Without any exception, analysts give us Buy recommendations and predict a median price target of EUR 19.0, which today corresponds to an upside potential of 171.0%. I agree with them and believe that the relentless commitment of our employees and partners, paired with our delivery on our communicated promises, will be reflected in the share price once investors regain confidence in growth stocks in a more stable environment.

Frankly, none of this would have been possible without our team, who strongly identify with ABOUT YOU and its culture of growth, tolerance, and inspiration. Happy Anniversary to all of you, here's to the next 365 days! 💥

Best, 

Tarek