The Secret Deal To Merge Net-a-Porter With Yoox

For months, the fashion world has speculated as to why Natalie Massenet suddenly exited Net-a-Porter, just weeks before a merger was consummated between the company she founded and Yoox, founded by Federico Marchetti. As it turns out, the real battle was not between the two former rivals, but between Net-a-Porter and Compagnie Financière Richemont, the powerful Swiss luxury goods conglomerate which invested in Net-a-Porter in the early days of the company and then acquired the business in 2010. Massenet’s original investor, Carmen Busquets, and several other current and former employees of Net-a-Porter, Yoox and Richemont spoke to BoF about the multi-billion-euro deal announced last March — and why it was so troubling for so many of them. To protect their relationships, most of these people spoke on the condition of anonymity. Massenet, Marchetti and representatives for Richemont all declined to comment — but the exclusive story pieced together here reveals that as the business relationship between Richemont and Net-a-Porter deteriorated, and Richemont sought to merge Net-a-Porter with Yoox without Massenet’s knowledge, things went from bad to worse. Read more at The Business of Fashion.