Mr Price has moved to purchase 100% of Yuppiechef, a privately-owned South African business focused on home and kitchenware.
Yuppiechef was founded in 2006 and is aimed at the distribution of aspirational kitchen and homeware brands.
The business has two primary operations – Yuppiechef Online, the retail division comprising the online platform and seven stores, as well as a wholesale division, which develops, and imports branded goods for wholesale distribution.
It commenced operations as a pure e-commerce company and since 2017 has transitioned into a full retail platform.
Mr Price said that purchase will give it the opportunity to gain access to a higher LSM customer base, enabling the growth of its share-of-wallet through ‘aspirational value spending’.
“We are very excited about welcoming the Yuppiechef team into our family,” said Mr Price chief executive Mark Blair.
“We are partnering with a market-leading business which has won numerous awards relating to both e-commerce and stores, and Yuppiechef has a proven ability to launch private-label categories which have also attracted industry recognition.”
Blair added that the acquisition will enable Mr Price to service a new customer base.
“Yuppiechef will benefit from our financial strength to accelerate growth plans which include significantly broadening the product assortment into areas where we have well-established skills and expanding its physical presence beyond the currently limited number of stores.
“We were early adopters of e-commerce in South Africa and our consistent investment has really paid off for us. Yuppiechef gives us another platform to escalate our ambitions in online retail and enables us to be strategically positioned for further growth.”
Mr Price said that the purchase consideration, which represents approximately 1% of market capitalisation, will be settled in cash.
The targeted effective date is subject to the fulfilment of both regulatory and commercial suspensive conditions which includes competition authority approval.
It added that the Yuppiechef management team will continue to run the business with the full support of the group’s executive team.
