Ccx Board & Phil Ryan- study this closely

Wall Street Journal-

Shein generated $23 billion in revenue last year, the people said, closing in on European rivals H&M Hennes & Mauritz and Zara owner Inditex, and its net profit was $800 million. Shein has set a target to grow its revenue by 40% this year, the people said.Before the latest fundraising which closed last week, Shein was last valued at $100 billion a year ago, catapulting its worth to be more than the combined market capitalization of H&M and Inditex. At the time, tech companies were flush with cash and investors have been betting on cashing in eventually when Shein goes public.Some existing investors told The Wall Street Journal that the lower valuation leaves headroom for the company to boost its market value should an IPO come to fruition. Such a stock sale would face challenges as scrutiny of the company intensifies.The company said on its website that its manufacturers are only allowed to source cotton from the U.S., India, Brazil, Australia and other approved regions, such as Bangladesh, Tanzania and Pakistan, adding that cotton from the U.S., India, Brazil and Australia make up about 95% of all cotton sourced for Shein-branded products. Shein had a meteoric rise during the Covid-19 pandemic with its seemingly endless array of cheap, trendy clothes made mostly in Chinese factories and sold through an easy-to-use mobile app, with no bricks-and-mortar stores. It sells overseas, but not in China.Founded in 2008 in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing, Shein’s clothes—from $20 cocktail dresses to $5 T-shirts—have won the hearts of many young consumers in the U.S., Europe and other markets.The company has said it can make its apparel at affordable prices because it uses algorithms to predict customer demand, produces in small quantities, and therefore is able to sell most of what it has made. Shein’s “on-demand production model” helps it reduce inventory turnover to about 40 days, less than half the time at bricks-and-mortar retailers such as H&M and Inditex, with fewer markdowns and less waste, according to a recent report by Boston Consulting Group on fashion-industry supply chains.The company said last month it was investing $70 million over the course of the next five years to help its manufacturers upgrade their facilities and their workers’ conditions. Shein is diversifying its supply chain to countries including Brazil and Turkey. It has said it is investing $150 million to train 2,000 local manufacturers in Brazil in the next three years, making the country an export hub for Latin America.