Samarkand plans float to boost China ecommerce business

Samarkand Group plans to raise about £10m by selling shares to expand its business linking Western brands to China online.

The company said it intended to list on the Apex segment of the Aquis Stock Exchange Growth Market and to have a free float of at least 25% of its share capital.

Samarkand gives non-Chinese brands an entry to the country's growing ecommerce market that is lower risk than sending stock to China. It operates from warehouses in the UK and Europe and allows businesses to reach Chinese consumers more directly.

The company said it would use the money from the initial public offering to develop its online platform, expand group development activities and make acquisitions. Revenue in the eight months to the end of November rose to £16m from £3.8m a year earlier.

David Hampstead, Samarkand's co-founder and chief executive, said: "We established Samarkand to provide a more direct-to-consumer route to the world's largest ecommerce market reducing the risks, costs and barriers to entry that have discouraged Western brands from entering the Chinese market for so long."

Hampstead said in the first few months of 2020 China added 92m ecommerce customers - more than the population of Germany. With more than 700m customers, China's ecommerce market is bigger than the next 10 markets combined and is forecast to be worth £138bn in 2021, up from £14bn seven years earlier, he added.