By Barnaby "Bottom-Line" Coyne
Shein is heading toward a September 1 stock market debut with a target valuation near $27 billion. Four years ago, in a round of private fundraising, investors valued the company at $100 billion.
That's not a small haircut. It's a nearly 75% markdown from peak to public offering — the kind of number that tells you something about how the market's mood toward fast fashion, and toward Shein specifically, has shifted since 2022.
Shein has spent years fending off scrutiny over labor conditions in its supply chain, environmental costs of ultra-cheap disposable clothing, and trade rules that let it ship small parcels to shoppers duty-free. None of that has stopped the company from becoming one of the biggest players in global fast fashion. But it appears to have cooled what investors are willing to pay for a piece of it.
The smaller valuation also matters for Shein's earliest backers, who bet big at the top of the market and are now looking at a listing worth a fraction of what they paid in. For workers in Shein's supply chain, the stakes are different but no less real: a public listing brings more disclosure requirements and more outside scrutiny of how the clothes actually get made.
What we don't yet know: the exact share price, the exchange, or how much of the offering is new capital for the company versus a cash-out for existing investors. Those details should surface before the listing.
Somebody's paying for this discount. We'll be watching to see if it's the company's practices catching up with it, or just a colder market.
— Compiled from reporting by the BBC.
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