Anders Holch Povlsen has accumulated stakes in listed online retailers, banks, and other finance firms over the past two decades, while overseeing one of the world’s largest closely held fashion fortunes.
Anders Holch Povlsen – Photographer: Tariq Mikkel Khan/AFP
But it’s a lucrative bet on Klarna Group Plc that’s currently driving the 52-year-old billionaire’s wealth revamp.
Povlsen, chief executive officer of Danish clothing retailer Bestseller, is among the biggest winners from the initial public offering of the financial technology company, which began trading Wednesday in New York and closed almost 15% above its offering price of $40 per share.
He now owns a roughly $1.4 billion stake in the Swedish business, making it his largest holding in a publicly traded company, while also cashing in at least $250 million from the offering, which priced above the marketed ranges, according to Bloomberg calculations. Povlsen has overall gains of more than 600% from his investment in the provider of buy-now, pay-later financing, taking the value of his disclosed holdings in listed companies to about $2.5 billion, the calculations show.
A representative for Povlsen — who has a total net worth of $6.9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index — didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Despite Klarna’s current valuation falling well below its 2021 peak of $45.6 billion, Povlsen’s investment underscores one of his most successful efforts to diversify a family fortune that began five decades ago, when his parents founded Bestseller as a women’s clothing store in a small Danish town.
Povlsen acquired a 10% stake in Klarna in mid-2017 through his family office, Heartland, just weeks before the fintech was valued at approximately $2.3 billion. He earlier used the investment firm to acquire holdings in e-commerce fashion sites Zalando SE and ASOS Plc. Heartland’s other listed assets include Funding Circle Holdings Plc, a London-based lending platform that has struggled since its initial public offering in 2018.
While also a major landowner in Scotland, most of Povlsen’s fortune remains tied up in Bestseller, where he first began working as a teenager before taking over from his parents as owner and managing director in 2001.
In a rare interview this year to mark Bestseller’s 50th anniversary, Povlsen said he originally wanted to start an e-commerce firm before deciding to work in the family business, underscoring his long-standing interest in the sector that Klarna has helped transform since its own creation in 2005.
“My parents did everything they could to dissuade me from following in their footsteps,” he told the Spin Off fashion magazine. “The more they tried, the more my interest in Bestseller grew.”
Other winners in Klarna’s IPO include the founders Victor Jacobsson, Niklas Adalberth, and Sebastian Siemiatkowski, who’s also its CEO. They cashed in at least $50 million of their combined holdings in the oversubscribed IPO, which valued the company at approximately $15 billion, according to filings.
The three now control overall stakes worth more than $2 billion in Klarna, a company that has evolved from a European clone of PayPal Holdings Inc. to one of the world’s biggest providers of short-term consumer loans as it seeks to disrupt the banking sector.
“You have to be willing to push the envelope,” Siemiatkowski said in an interview Tuesday with Bloomberg News.
The Italian competition authority said on Tuesday it had opened two investigations into Swiss watchmaker Swatch and Japan’s Citizen Watch.
Reuters
The probes involve an alleged infringement of European rules on the fixing of retail prices displayed online by the groups’ authorised distributors.
The two companies may be limiting price competition among their retailers through a vertical agreement, by imposing retail prices on their distributors and adopting “retaliatory commercial measures” against those that fail to comply, the antitrust authority said in a statement.
The agency’s officials carried out inspections at the Italian offices of Swatch and Citizen on December 3.
Swatch and Citizen did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
British retail tycoon Mike Ashley has pledged around 670 million pounds ($890.6 million) worth of shares in his sportswear and fashion retailer Frasers Group Plc as collateral for a loan from HSBC, according to filing on Tuesday.
Reuters
Ashley’s holding company, MASH Beta Limited, which holds the majority of Frasers’ issued share capital, pledged about 103.6 million ordinary shares.
Frasers’ shares were down about 1.3% at 646.5 pence as of Tuesday’s last close.
This move comes after the company’s heavy investments in newer geographies and taking or increasing shareholding in recent months across companies, from fashion groups to electrical retailers. Mike Ashley holds roughly a 73% stake in Frasers, according to data compiled by LSEG.
The company whose portfolio includes Sports Direct, House of Fraser and Flannels, reaffirmed its full-year profit forecast earlier this month.
G-III Apparel on Tuesday raised its full-year earnings forecast on the back of better-than-expected earnings in the third quarter, which also saw the U.S. firm’s sales drop 9% to $988.6 million.
Courtesy
The New York-based firm logged earnings of $80.6 million, or $1.84 per diluted share during the three months ending October 31, compared to $114.8 million, or $2.55 per diluted share, in the prior year’s third quarter.
While profits were lower than the same period last year, the owner of Karl Lagerfeld, Sonia Rykiel, and DKNY brands, “delivered a strong third quarter with gross margins and earnings far exceeding our expectations,” according to said Morris Goldfarb, G-III’s chairman and chief executive officer.
“This was driven by the strength of our go-forward portfolio, particularly our owned brands, as well as a healthy mix of full-price sales and our mitigation efforts against tariffs. I am pleased with how our brands are resonating with consumers and encouraged by the solid demand we have seen throughout the holiday season to date,” continued Goldfarb, who said his company is raising its fiscal 2026 earnings guidance to “reflect our third quarter outperformance tempered by the uncertainties around the consumer environment and tariff-related margin pressures.”
In June, G-III Apparel filed a $250-million lawsuit against PVH Corp., escalating tensions between the two fashion giants with allegations of breached licensing agreements and interference in business relationships. The complaint, filed in New York state court, targets PVH and its Calvin Klein Inc. and Tommy Hilfiger licensing divisions.