La Fée Maraboutée welcomes new shareholder, Capza

By

Marion Deslandes

Published
Sep 15, 2022

After ten years in the hands of Silverfleet Capital, La Fée Maraboutée is changing ownership. The French women's clothing brand has welcomed the arrival of the European investment fund Capza, launched in Paris in 2004. The latter manages a total of 7 billion euros in assets, including Eduservices, Big Mamma, Wshop, Alixio, among others and is therefore taking a majority stake in the fashion company based in Roanne, in the Loire region in France, alongside its managers. The amount of the transaction has not been disclosed.

Directed since the end of 2019 by Gaëlle Lelong and Pierre-Yves Vincent-Falquet, the label born in 1996 targets women aged 35 to 65 and has 75% of its collections manufactured in Europe. It runs 140 shops, mainly in France and relies on a wholesale network that accounts for around 30% of its business.

The fashion company employs around 200 people and generated over 50 million euros worth of sales in 2021. Pre-pandemic figures showed a turnover of 58 million euros in 2019.

La Fée Maraboutée's aim is to "consolidate its territorial coverage in France, to accelerate its development on the digital channel and to reinforce its CSR characteristics", says Capza in a release.

"We were attracted to the company's fundamentals in a complex business context, by the team formed by Gaëlle and Pierre-Yves, by the relevance of the offer and the targeted customer segment, and by the brand's commitment to more ethical and responsible fashion. We are delighted to support the group in this new stage of its development", emphasizes Jérôme Girszyn, associate partner of the Capza Transition fund.

In 2021, La Fée Maraboutée opened up to the second-hand sector, with a service of deposit and resale of second-hand fashion items in the boutique. It also highlighted the use of a robot mannequin, created by Euvek, when making prototypes for greater morphological precision.