MySale IPO chaos after listing price cock-up

Fashion website tumbles on debut after advisers make decimal point error on listing price, causing confusion in market

Sir Philip Green owns a 25pc stake in Australian online retailer MySale
Sir Philip Green owns a 25pc stake in Australian online retailer MySale Credit: Photo: Bloomberg News

MySale, the Australian fashion website backed by Sir Philip Green, has slumped on its stock market debut with traders blaming a listing price mistake.

MySale should have priced its shares at 226p, but they were instead noted as £2.26, which led many in the market believing they had begun trading at 2.26p.

It is understood that Macquarie, MySale's nominated adviser, inadvertently put the price in pounds rather than pence and when traders' systems kicked in there was mass confusion as it triggered auto-selling.

The IPO confusion, managed by Manchester-based advisory firm Zeus Capital and Macquarie, led to shares sinking by as much as 27pc.

The company quickly issued a clarification statement saying “MySale Group trading currency is currently in GBP, as opposed to British pence as intended. The quote will be changed to British pence tomorrow Tuesday 17 June 8am”.

A person close to the process admitted that it was a "cock-up" and there would be no way of knowing the market's true reaction to MySale until the company is repriced on Tuesday.

One London-based broker said that some investors may try and claim their money back after the pricing fiasco.

“People would have recourse to whoever [priced] it,” the broker said, adding that investors who had bought there shares were "grumpy" about the fall in the price.

Another dealer said that the confusion in the pricing was stopping some houses from trading Mysale shares altogether.

The share performance will be an embarrassment to the Topshop tycoon backer and also Zeus – who has up until now used its local presence to win a number of listing mandates including advising on fashion retailer Boohoo.com's float.

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