Zalando and ABOUT YOU Successfully Complete Transaction and Team Up to Lead the Way in European Fashion and Lifestyle E-commerce
- barboraarendasova
- Jul 24
- 2 min read
Recently, Zalando SE , Europe’s leading online multi-brand fashion destination, and ABOUT YOU Holding SE announced that they have completed their strategic combination, allowing them to serve customers and partners across Europe better. With their complementary Business-to-Consumer and Business-to-Business offerings, the two founder-led companies will build a pan-European ecosystem for fashion and lifestyle e-commerce and cover a larger share of the European fashion and lifestyle e-commerce market.
On 1 July 2025, the European Commission granted merger control clearance for the transaction, including the voluntary public takeover offer to the shareholders of ABOUT YOU. Zalando has now acquired 91.45% of ABOUT YOU’s share capital (excluding treasury shares). Zalando still has the firm intention as a next step to carry out a squeeze-out of the remaining minority shareholders of ABOUT YOU and to acquire the remaining ABOUT YOU shares against adequate cash compensation.
“Both companies grew from local start-ups to European success stories by understanding the nuanced and diverse needs of customers across many markets, and driven by a relentless focus on quality and innovation. Together, we’ll work to be an unbeatable team to lead the way in European fashion and lifestyle E-commerce,” said Robert Gentz, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Zalando.
“In B2C, we offer customers and brands two distinct and rich shopping experiences. In B2B, combining our complementary logistics and software capabilities ZEOS, Tradebyte and SCAYLE, will create an even more advanced e-commerce operating system that enables brands and retailers to manage their multi-channel business across Europe and beyond.”
Joint focus on growth and long-term value creation ABOUT YOU’s operations add scale and complementary capabilities, fully aligning with Zalando’s ecosystem strategy, as communicated in March 2024, to build a pan-European fashion and lifestyle e-commerce ecosystem. The transaction presents compelling value creation opportunities that the two companies, operating in the same industry, can generate by collaborating in a wide range of areas, including B2B, logistics, payments, and commercial collaboration. In the longer term, Zalando targets significant Group EBIT synergies of around 100 million euros per annum. In the B2C growth vector, adding ABOUT YOU will enable Zalando to implement a dual-brand strategy.
Each brand retains its distinct identity while leveraging synergies in logistics, payment infrastructure and commercial collaboration. This strategic move allows the combined entity to provide tailored and separate shopping experiences, effectively meeting the unique needs and preferences of customers. In the B2B growth vector, ABOUT YOU's SCAYLE complements Zalando's B2B vision to build an operating system for fashion and lifestyle. ZEOS, Tradebyte and SCAYLE join forces to help brands and retailers manage their multi-channel business across Europe and beyond with a suite of logistics, software and service offerings.
Image source: corporate.zalando.com
