LONDON — Mytheresa has named Burkhart Grund, chief financial officer of Richemont, a member of the supervisory board, subject to the completion of its purchase of Yoox Net-a-porter, which was revealed last year.
The nomination will be presented for approval by Mytheresa shareholders at an extraordinary general meeting set for March 6. The closing of the transaction, which was announced in early October, is expected to occur in the first half of 2025, and is subject to customary conditions, including the receipt of antitrust approvals.
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Nora Aufreiter, chair of the supervisory board of Mytheresa, said that with Grund’s nomination, “we look forward to welcoming an internationally experienced financial expert to our board.”
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Aufreiter added that Mytheresa plans to expand the supervisory board by one seat to accommodate Grund. The board will now consist of eight members, the majority of whom are independent directors under both New York Stock Exchange and Dutch Corporate Governance Code standards.
“We feel honored to work with another high-caliber individual in the future, and are convinced that we will be able to accelerate the profitable growth and sustainable success of our combined companies following the transaction,” she said.
Grund started his Richemont career in 2000 as chief financial officer of Montblanc in France, before taking up a similar role at Van Cleef & Arpels. He later became group deputy finance director before his appointment to the senior executive committee as group CFO in 2017.
He graduated from Georgia Southern University with a degree in business administration, and completed his graduate studies in international finance at Münster University, Germany.
As reported, the deal will see Richemont sell YNAP to Mytheresa with a cash position of 555 million euros and no financial debt. Richemont will also make available a six-year revolving credit facility of 100 million euros to finance YNAP’s general corporate needs, including working capital.
In exchange, Mytheresa will hand Richemont a stake representing 33 percent of its fully diluted share capital. Richemont also has the right to nominate a member, and an observer, to the Mytheresa board, which will be Grund.
Richemont chairman Johann Rupert has described Mytheresa as a “good home for YNAP” while Grund has said that, going forward, Richemont will part-own “a very strong customer-facing business, which is what we ultimately wanted to achieve.”
Mytheresa chief executive officer Michael Kliger’s aim is to create a 4 billion euro online juggernaut in the luxury fashion space by operating the Mytheresa shopfront alongside Net-a-porter and Mr Porter. He plans to deal with the discount Yoox business separately.