Adore Beauty reaches major milestone

It seems online beauty destination, Adore Beauty, has made a successful debut on the Australian Securities Exchange after its customers took the plunge and invested in the notoriously growing female-led company.

The retailer landed on the ASX on Friday, with a market capitalisation of $635.3 million at $6.75 per share. On its first day of trade alone, it edged up 2.5 per cent to close to $6.92. At one point in early afternoon trading, the shares even increased by as much as 10 per cent to $7.42.

Adore Beauty co-founder, Kate Morris, launched the business back in 2000 with her partner, James Height. Since then, the site has gone from strength to strength, today selling 11,000 products across more than 230 brands – which is why it should come as no surprise that Morris was contacted by many first-time female investors, who were already customers and keen to back the company on the ASX.

"I've just had so many people reach out to me and say 'hey look, I've never bought shares before because I've never really seen anything that inspired me enough to go and organise it all and get a broker account set up... but I think this is something I can get excited about,” Morris said, adding “To me that's just wonderful and that's why representation matters."

Adore Beauty’s listing is the most valuable float this year, and it is the largest women-led business to list on the ASX – with Morris as co-founder and Tennealle O'Shannessy as chief executive.

"If you're a customer of a business then you understand what the value proposition is and one of the things that appealed to fund managers when we were doing the roadshows is that we did have this base of just really loyal, passionate customers that kept coming back year after year," Morris said. "It's more compelling to get excited about a stock when you've had some experience with it as a customer."

One woman who decided to buy shares in Adore Beauty was entrepreneur, Summer Howarth, who said it was her first ever share market investment. She wanted to support a female-founded business, particularly Morris, who she admires for building her company from the ground up.

"I literally had to teach myself how to trade this week," she said. "I thought why would I invest in something I am not willing to be a customer in first? I always have a really great user experience [with Adore Beauty] and I know a lot of my friends are the same, Adore is their go to, it makes good sense if there are repeat customers."

According to InvestSmart Group deputy head of research, Gaurav Sodhi, Morris and her team could “potentially have a unicorn on their hands.”

“It’s a terrific company, it’s well-managed, it has diligently built up a dedicated following over two decades, all the metrics are great,” Sodhi said. “I think there’s a very good chance that this hits a billion dollars. There are so many ways for this company to grow.”

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