Last Updated on 10/27/2021 by GS Staff
Can You Buy Spanx Stock?
Spanx is majority owned by an investment management company. It is not publicly traded on its own. However, its parent company is publicly traded. Read on for more details.
Who Owns Spanx?
Blackstone (NYSE: BX), an asset management firm, purchased a majority stake in Spanx in October 2021. According to Marketwatch, the deal placed a $1.2 billion valuation on the company.
Spanx was founded by Sara Blakely who owns the company. She started the business with $5,000 in capital that she made at least partially from selling fax machines door-to-door. This was back in 1998 when home use of fax machines was a bit more common. Blakely developed the initial idea for Spanx while working at this job and having to wear pantyhose which she believed could have been designed better.
One day before attending a party, she cut the feet off her pantyhose to wear under her newly purchased slacks. While the pantyhose rolled up through the night, pairing the footless pantyhose with slacks was the foundation of what would become Spanx.
Amazingly, Blakely’s $5,000 investment into the company would create a business that produced $4 million in sales in its first year. One of the pivotal moments for the company was in 2000 when Oprah included Spanx in her holiday “Favorite Things” TV show.
This show helped catapult sales to over $10 million. Today, the company pulls in revenue somewhere between $300 to $400 million based on estimates. However, Spanx keeps its financials confidential so true revenue figures aren’t available.
Will Spanx Ever Be Public?
Blackstone is no stranger to acquiring companies and later bringing them public. For example, Blackstone took a majority stake in MagicLab, the parent company of the dating apps Bumble and Badoo, in November 2019. On February 10, 2021, Bumble went public and raised $2.15 billion from the deal.
Keep in mind that Blackstone invested $3 billion to take its initial stake in MagicLab. According to Forbes, the initial investment returned $2.3 billion in cash from the IPO. Additionally, Blackstone maintained approximately $4 billion in shares at the time of the IPO. Talk about an amazing return!
Of course, there is no guarantee that Spanx will ever go public. All is just conjecture until Blackstone officially announces it is filing an IPO for Spanx. Of course, there is no guarantee that there will ever be a public Spanx. However, money talks, especially for a company like Blackstone, as it likely did when it brought Bumble public. Stay tuned!
Sources:
Image Credit – Mike Mozart/flickr
Wang, J. (2021, June 29). Spanx is reportedly Shopping itself for $1 billion, But Forbes estimates the SHAPEWEAR firm is worth far less. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferwang/2021/06/29/spanx-is-reportedly-shopping-itself-for-1-billion-but-forbes-estimates-the-shapewear-firm-is-worth-far-less/?sh=7914895433a4.
Gara, A. (2021, June 30). The bumble IPO and Blackstone’s Private Equity Gold Mine. Forbes. Retrieved October 28, 2021, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2021/02/12/the-bumble-ipo-and-blackstones-private-equity-goldmine/?sh=3460c20d6229.