Condé’s ‘Farfetch-ed’ investment a big win

CONDÉ Nast seems to have walked away from its investment in Farfetch Ltd. with a nice payday and a rare win in the turbulent world of e-commerce.

“It was the opposite of a fiasco,” said one source with knowledge of the Condé numbers. “It was a terrific windfall.”

Farfetch, which as of Tuesday had a market capitalization of $5.93 billion, had gone public in the US in 2018 and in the first six months of that year had racked up losses of $71.9 million on half-year revenue of $267.5 million.

Condé Nast was reportedly growing concerned with the money Farfetch was spending on marketing, according to the Times of London, which broke the news of Condé’s exit last week.

But with an investment reportedly to be around $293 million — only a portion of that in cash — Media Ink estimates Condé Nast may have reaped more than $400 million as it walked away.

The site lets shoppers across the globe peruse goods for retailers ranging from Brown’s in London to Five Story in NYC, with Farfetch taking a 25 percent cut.

By June 2017, Condé Nast decided to toss in the towel on its homegrown Style.com — which had been the subject of some internal bickering for control — and merged it into Farfetch, getting another 258,000 shares of stock in the then-privately held company, which it had invested in back in 2013.

Condé Nast International Chairman Jonathan Newhouse took a seat on the board of the Londonbased Farfetch.

In March, Jonathan quietly resigned that seat shortly before Condé Nast erased his day job as chairman of Condé Nast International and Roger Lynch was installed as CEO of domestic and international Condé Nast.

Exactly how lucrative the deal was is a little tough to decipher, but in the August 2018 filing, Farfetch lists Condé Nast and its parent, Advance Magazine Publishers, as holding 14,838,000 shares of common stock

If Condé dumped the bulk of its shares on March 8 — the same day that Jonathan Newhouse resigned — it means Condé would have walked away with $411,469,109, since the stock closed that day at $27.73 a share. Farfetch said Condé held 5.6 percent of its common stock post IPO, but declined to speculate on the timing of Condé’s stock sale prices. Condé Nast declined to comment. Farfetch closed at $19.77 on Tuesday, up 1.33 percent.

Maga-scenes

The rich and beautiful on the East End are just beginning to move into full party mode, with many social events tied to the many publications on the Hamptons scene.

The granddaddy of all the East End publications, Hamptons magazine, is tossing an oceanfront party featuring John Leg

end Saturday, following up June 29’s bash at the Southampton Hunt & Polo Club hosted by supermodel Nina Agdal that drew

CBS power anchor Gayle King.

The sizzling hot SI swimsuit model Emily O’Hara Ratajkowski — who created a sensation last week with her nude pool shot on Instragram captioned “besado por sol” (Spanish for “kissed by the sun”) — is on the cover of the current issue of the Daily Front Row Summer. The mag, which publishes five issues from the East End each season, is hosting a Boys of Summer event at Gurney’s Resort in Montauk on Saturday.

“We continue to runn models on all our covers, our demographic is younger than the main regionals, and our readers, viewers and followers are very active fashion and beauty shoppers,” said publisher Brandusa Niro.

Hamptons Cottages & Gardens sponsors everything from house tours that benefit local charities to bigger events to which it sells tickets to the public.

“We’ve been doing events for 18 years, and I believe we’ve created a monster,” said Marianne Howatson, CEO of C&G Media Group. Her big event of the season is HC&G Innovation in Design Awards on Aug. 1 at the Topping Rose House in Bridgehampton, which sells tickets to the public at $150 a pop. The Innovator Award this year is going to Edwina Von Gal, author, landscape architect and Perfect Earth Project founder.

Hearst hop

Hearst has tapped a new publishing director to oversee Elle and Marie Claire as longtime executive Kevin K O’Malley retires. Carol Smith, who is already the VP/publisher and chief revenue officer at Harper’s Bazaar, will now add Elle and Marie Claire to her portfolio as publishing director of all three magazines as Hearst’s print empire continues to consolidate. Smith had run Elle and its sidekick Elle Decor (now shuffled off to Hearst’s home group) between 2002 and 2010. O’Malley told Media Ink it was his decision to leave. “When the time is right, it’s a combination of your gut and your head,” he said.