LONDON — José Neves is stepping down as chief executive officer of Farfetch two months after Coupang and the San Francisco-based firm Greenoaks Capital purchased the e-commerce platform out of administration and pledged $500 million to help revive it.
According to a memo seen by WWD, Neves will remain at Farfetch in a consultancy role and will not be directly replaced as CEO. Going forward, the Farfetch business will be overseen by Coupang’s founder Bom Kim and the Farfetch executive team.
Neves’ move comes amid a slew of managerial layoffs at the company. Elizabeth Von Der Goltz, chief fashion and merchandising officer at Farfetch and CEO at Browns, and Kelly Kowal, head of Farfetch Platform Solutions, are among the top managers exiting the business.
A Farfetch spokesperson said: “As we assessed key priorities and resources across the business, we made the difficult, but necessary, decision to reduce global headcount and redundant roles.
“This decision secures the future of the business and as a result, Farfetch can now operate from a position of strength and focus on what we do best: deliver exceptional experiences for brands, boutiques and customers.”
More job cuts are expected to be revealed in the next few days.
According to the memo, Coupang wants to streamline the business, recover “financial strength and focus on what we do best: deliver exceptional experiences for brands, boutiques, FPS clients and customers. This new, better-structured organization will continue to move with speed to unlock the full potential of the online luxury space that Farfetch pioneered.”
The company said conversations with those impacted by the redundancies will start in Portugal on Friday and in the U.K. and other geographies on Monday.
Although Coupang did not specify the number of job cuts planned, it is understood that Farfetch had staffed up considerably during, and immediately after, the pandemic to deal with increased consumer demand.
Neves founded Farfetch in 2008, built it into a $24 billion company, but eventually saw his investments wiped out.
He had been expected to remain with Coupang in some capacity while the company integrated Farfetch into its operations.
Coupang first revealed its purchase of Farfetch on Dec. 18, and since then the company has taken full control of the London-based platform, which was delisted from the Nasdaq as part of the sale.
A Fortune 200 company, Coupang is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It has e-commerce operations and support services in markets including South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China and India.
It compares, albeit on a smaller scale, to Alibaba in China and has been looking to move upmarket, and into fashion and luxury goods services.
Coupang has promised that Farfetch will continue to serve its more than 4 million customers worldwide and said it wants the platform “to pursue steady and thoughtful growth.”
According to sources, Coupang has been taking a “no-nonsense, granular approach” to understanding the Farfetch business as it attempts to streamline operations over the past two months.
Going forward, marketing spend will be diverted to “driving transactions” rather than building the Farfetch brand and image, the sources said. FPS, which works with Farfetch and third parties on software and technology, will remain a core part of the business.
Negotiations to sell noncore assets in the Farfetch portfolio, such as Browns and New Guards Group, are understood to be ongoing.
As reported, Style Capital is eyeing the acquisition of New Guards Group, according to Roberta Benaglia, founder and CEO of the Italian private equity firm.
In early December, WWD reported that Browns was also in play, and that Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group was an interested buyer. Frasers has since bought Matches, another fashion tech company that saw its valuation plummet last year amid a slew of macroeconomic challenges.
As reported, there is an ad hoc group of Farfetch bond holders disputing Coupang’s purchase of Farfetch, and they have taken their battle to a Cayman Islands court.
They are demanding more than $400 million in funds, and want the holding company that had been set up to facilitate Farfetch’s 2018 listing on the New York Stock Exchange to be liquidated.
The bond holders, who are in possession of more than half of Farfetch’s 3.75 percent convertible senior notes, due in 2027, have filed a “winding-up petition” on the grounds that Farfetch Limited is unable to pay its debts.
Even before the legal action, Coupang confirmed that the Cayman Islands shell company would be wound down as part of the delisting of Farfetch.
