VANCL Filing Prospectus Aiming for Q4 IPO

Chinese online-only apparel site VANCL is reportedly filing its IPO prospectus in next month in an aim to raise between $750 million and US$1 billion in a U.S. IPO. The deal, which is targeted for the fourth quarter of this year, could be the largest initial public offering from China in the U.S. this year.

The Beijing-based company was said to be downsizing 5% of its staff across the board, which according to some analysts could be a sign for getting prepared for an imminent IPO through reducing cost and boosting balance sheet. Or maybe getting prepared for the long-rumored-yet-to-come winter at a rough guess.

According to people familiar with the matter, VANCL has hired Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse as underwriters.

The Beijing-based company now offers international shipping to 79 countries.

Started out as online-only apparel brand, VANCL’s tentacle now touches clothes, home supplies, cosmetics through two sites: VANCL.com and Vjia.com. The latter one is positioned as an online shopping mall in which customers can buy branded clothing, house supplies and so on. For example, we can find Dior, Guerlain, Clarins under the cosmetics category and Crocs, Belle, Nike and Adidas under the shoe channel, other items you can purchase from Vjia.com includes suitcase and even digital camera.