DGAP-News: home24 SE: Alliance for growth: home24 acquires home accessories direct to consumer brand Butlers and expands its market position

Alliance for growth: home24 acquires home accessories direct to consumer brand Butlers and expands its market position

• Online & furniture expertise meets home accessories & retail expertise, product portfolios complement each other perfectly.
• Both strong brands will remain active as customer destinations, already operate profitably and expect synergetic revenue and earnings contributions already in 2022.
• Butlers' prowess to launch 3,000 new products per year strengthens home24's private label expertise in home textiles, decorations and tableware.
• home24 gains access to more than 40 million Butlers visitors per year and taps into a profitable offline customer acquisition channel with the unique Butlers retail format.
• Butlers accelerates its online strategy by leveraging home24's logistics and technology expertise and expanding its customer offering with bulk furniture.
• The Company's growth perspective from a combined base of c. EUR 700 million revenues in 2021 generates a significant competitive advantage and secures jobs for the future.

The family operated business Butlers currently operates 100 stores in German-speaking countries. In addition, 32 stores are operated by franchise partners in nine further European countries. Butlers is a creative factory of beautiful things in the most popular colors, shapes, and styles. Butlers' designers and product specialists develop more than 3,000 new items every year. In its stores and online webshop, Butlers attracts around 40 million visitors a year. Even in the years 2020 and 2021, which were impacted by lockdowns, the company generated revenues in a high double-digit million range and operated significantly profitably. Although Butlers is an innovative brick-and-mortar retailer, they expanded its online business early on and already generate c. 25% of its sales online. The Butlers management team will not only continue to manage the brand at the Cologne office but will also play a decisive role in the broader home24 Group.

home24 is a pure-play e-commerce platform that operates showrooms for customer consultation and outlets for returns clearance. As a result of the acquisition, home24 now gains access to a large offline customer base that can be reached directly via the Butlers stores. Above all, this is strategically relevant because the share of online home & living is still quite low in home24 markets, which means that many customers can currently primarily only be reached offline. In addition to the joint customer approach in the stores, the Group will also integrate home24 showrooms in selected Butlers stores. At the same time, home24 will sell Butlers' online assortment on its e-commerce platform and also strengthen their online and furniture logistics expertise. The retail revenue share in Europe will account for around 10 percent of the home24 Group's combined sales.

Marc Appelhoff, CEO of home24, says: "The Butlers and home24 assortments complement each other perfectly. Together, we create a comprehensive range of products, from large pieces of furniture to tabletop accessories - and bring to life inspirational home environments that strengthen our customers' loyalty to home24 and foster regular interaction. The Butlers stores in attractive city locations multiply our personal contact opportunities with customers and increase our independence from online marketing. At the same time, we are strengthening our respective online offerings, thus creating even more attractive home & living destinations both online and offline. Butlers has developed a highly profitable 'direct-to-consumer' business model which we are now adding to our proven online platform, our furniture expertise as well as our scalable logistics.".

At the same time, Appelhoff said, the acquisition shows the strength home24 has meanwhile gained in the market. "home24 is consistently pursuing its growth strategy as a shaper in the home & living industry. By expanding our impulse purchase range and leap-frogging the personal touch-points with customers, we are taking a strategically important step that will significantly improve our competitive position. Together, we combine forces for profitable growth based on combined sales of approximately 700 million euros expected in 2021.".

Wilhelm Josten, founder and managing director of Butlers, comments: "We are excited to have found the ideal partner in home24: We share the passion for a beautiful, hospitable home and the enthusiasm to serve our customers. Through this alliance, our respective strengths come into even better play. The result will be growth. Together, our two brands have enormous potential, which we will exploit and continuously expand in the coming years. In this way, we are jointly making an important contribution to securing and creating jobs.".

home24 directly and indirectly acquires 100% of the shares of Butlers Holding GmbH & Co. KG. The majority of the shares are being purchased by home24 with cash and cash equivalents. The purchase price will be paid in two tranches, and is made partly in the form of a vendor loan, so that the Group will continue to retain ample financial headroom for future growth investments. In addition, Butlers founding shareholder Wilhelm Josten will exchange a portion of his shares of Butlers Holding GmbH & Co. KG into new shares of home24 SE. As a result, Wilhelm Josten will become a shareholder of approx. 3.9% of home24 SE upon completion of the acquisition. He will also continue to play a key role in shaping the Butlers' business as well as taking on responsibility for the Group strategy together with home24's management.

Notice: Images showing how the product ranges of home24 and Butlers complement each other can be downloaded here: https://we.tl/t-CpxpHUdjgd

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About home24

home24 is a leading pure-play home & living e-commerce platform in Continental Europe and Brazil. With over 100,000 home & living products in Europe and more than 200,000 articles in Latin America, home24 offers a unique selection of large and small furniture pieces, garden furniture, mattresses and lighting. This curated, broad assortment offers a significant value-for-money value proposition to customers. home24 is headquartered in Berlin and employs more than 1,900 people worldwide. The Company is active in seven European markets: Germany, France, Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium and Italy. home24 is also active in Brazil under the "Mobly" brand. In Europe, home24 delivers its products above an order value of 30 euros - regardless of size and weight - free of charge to the customer's home and also offers free returns. home24's product range consists of numerous brands, including a large number of private labels. home24 is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (ISIN DE000A14KEB5). Mobly's stock is traded on the Brazilian Novo Mercado of B3 (ISIN BRMBLYACNOR5). For more information, please visit the Company's website at www.home24.com.

About Butlers
Butlers, the family company founded in 1999, today employs about 1000 people. The assortment composing of home accessories, decoration and gifts is presented in 100 stores in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as well as online and in 32 franchise locations also in other European countries. Furthermore Butlers distributes its articles at more than 5.000 external selling points. The company's domicile is Cologne, Germany. The medium-sized enterprise has already won numerous awards for its innovative concept. More information at: www.butlers.com

Competent person for this publication:

Anne Golombeck
Senior Communications Manager
+49 30 201 632 941 6

Press contact:
Anne Golombeck
anne.golombeck@home24.de

Investor contact:
Philipp Steinhäuser
ir@home24.de

Legal disclaimer:

This publication contains forward-looking statements. These statements are based on the current views, expectations, assumptions and information of the Company's management. Forward-looking statements contain no guarantee for the occurrence of future results and developments and are associated with known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Due to various factors, actual future results, developments and events may differ materially from those described in these statements; neither the Company nor any other person accepts any responsibility whatsoever for the accuracy of the opinions or underlying assumptions contained in this publication. The Company assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements contained in this publication.