Society PassForms Leflair, Inc. Subsidiary, Which Will Run the Leflair Ecommerce Platform; Appoints a New CEO
Society Pass (SOPA) has completed the restructuring of Leflair’s Vietnam operations into the new Leflair Group, targeting the $100B+ Southeast Asian retail market. Loic Gautier, co-founder and former CEO of Leflair, is appointed Group CEO, while Ngo Thi Cham becomes Group COO. This strategic shift aims to transform Leflair from a single platform into a lifestyle retail ecosystem, enhancing its competitive position. Gautier emphasizes ambitious plans for expansion and upcoming acquisitions to drive growth and aims for future IPO funding rounds.
- Appointment of experienced leadership with Loic Gautier as Group CEO, potentially driving strategic growth.
- Restructuring aims to expand Leflair's presence as a lifestyle retail ecosystem in Southeast Asia.
- Plans for upcoming acquisitions to enhance Leflair's market position.
- Concerns about continuity given the restructuring and new management team dynamics.
- This press release clarifies information in the press release from April 15, 2022.
- Society Pass Incorporated (SoPa) (Nasdaq: “SOPA”), a leading Southeast Asia loyalty and ecommerce ecosystem and parent company of Leflair Inc (“Leflair Group”), announced today the completion of corporate restructuring of Leflair’s Vietnam operations into Leflair Group – a new integrated lifestyle retail ecosystem to compete in Southeast Asia’s 100B+ USD retail market.
- SoPa introduced a new management team to facilitate this restructuring and announced the appointment of Loic Gautier – Co-founder and Former CEO of Leflair as the new Group CEO, and Ngo Thi Cham – Vietnam Country Head of SOPA as the Group COO.
- As the CEO of Leflair Group, Mr. Gautier will be responsible for managing the Leflair Group’s P&L, sourcing and executing upcoming acquisitions to enlarge the Leflair ecosystem, and expand to other Southeast Asian markets.
Singapore, April 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NewMediaWire -- Society Pass Incorporated (Nasdaq: SOPA) announced today the completion of restructuring of Leflair Vietnam’s operations into a separate entity – Leflair Inc (“Leflair Group”). Along with this corporate restructuring, SoPa appointed Mr. Loic Gautier to become the new Group Chief Executive Officer of Leflair Group. Ms. Ngo Thi Cham – Vietnam Country Head of SoPa and current Managing Director of Leflair – will be the Group’s new Chief Operating Officer and work alongside with Mr. Gautier in driving the business forward in its next stage of growth.
As a result of this corporate restructuring process, we believe Leflair Group could become Southeast Asia’s next lifestyle retail super distributor nexus, evolving from a single discounted platform to a lifestyle retail ecosystem, providing shoppers with an integrated and unique shopping experience from online to offline. Leflair Group continues to acquire companies in the ecommerce, lifestyle retail and online advertising verticals.
Mr. Ray Liang, CFO of SoPa Group, commented, “After the IPO of SoPa last year, we have been working on a new growth strategy for Leflair in order to maximize its potential to become the destination for lifestyle shopping in Southeast Asia. In order to facilitate that growth, we are happy to welcome back Mr. Loic Gautier to join our executive team and become the driving force for Leflair Group in the future. At Society Pass, hiring key talents is always among our top priorities as a company and we always welcome Leflair’s old talents to come back and work together to bring Leflair to new heights. Having Mr. Gautier come back as the CEO of Leflair Group ensures continuous and sustainable growth for Leflair in the years to come. The new recruitment also enables us to carry out bigger plans for Leflair, evolving from a single online platform to become a true ecosystem for lifestyle shopping.”
Since its IPO on the Nasdaq last year, SoPa has focused on M&A activities to expand the ecosystem with other online platforms across 6 verticals: lifestyle, F&B, travel, digital media, and B2B software and loyalty technology in the top three V.I.P countries of Southeast Asia – Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines. Through these business lines, SoPa improves the interconnectedness and support within its ecosystem, fulfilling its mission to connect millions of registered consumers and thousands of registered merchants across Southeast Asia.
Within this new appointment, Mr. Gautier will be responsible for running Leflair Group’s growth and expansion strategy to bring the Leflair platform to other Southeast Asian countries, as well as managing the upcoming acquisitions in order to expand the group to other smaller segments within the lifestyle retail industry.
Loic Gautier, the new CEO of Leflair Group, shared, “It’s an honor to receive SoPa’s trust. With this spin-off, Leflair now has a new medium to maximize its full growth potential. By pivoting from a single platform to an integrated lifestyle retail ecosystem, we seek to connect all players within the lifestyle retail value chain, from brand distributors, to offline stores, ecommerce platforms and delivery companies. The new vision makes Leflair a pioneer in redefining the lifestyle and ecommerce retail market across Southeast Asia.”
According to Mr. Gautier, Leflair Group is working towards ambitious plans ahead, aiming for extensive funding rounds and a roadmap to IPO in the near future.
For more information, please check out our website: www.thesocietypass.com/ www.leflair.com
Media contact
PRecious Communications for SoPa
sopa@preciouscomms.com
About Society Pass
Society Pass is a loyalty and data marketing ecosystem that operates multiple ecommerce and lifestyle platforms across its key markets. Its business model focuses on collecting user data through the expected circulation of its universal loyalty points. It seamlessly connects consumers and merchants across multiple product and service categories fostering organic loyalty. Since its inception, SoPa has amassed over 1.6 million registered consumers and over 5,500 registered merchants/brands on its platform. It has invested 2+ years building proprietary IT architecture with cutting edge components to effectively scale and support its Platform’s consumers, merchants, and acquisitions.
Society Pass provides merchants with #HOTTAB Biz and #HOTTAB POS– a specialized POS technology solution, a comprehensive system for payment, loyal customer management, user profile analytics, and convenient financial support packages for small and medium-sized enterprises.
In addition, SoPa operates Leflair.com, Vietnam’s leading lifestyle e-commerce platform, Pushkart.ph, a popular grocery delivery company in Philippines, and Handycart.vn, a leading online restaurant delivery service based in Hanoi, Vietnam.
For more information, please check out: http://thesocietypass.com/.
About Leflair
Based in Ho Chi Minh City, Leflair is an online premium outlet for Fashion, Beauty and Home Furnishing products. Launched on December 2015, Leflair had been selling more than 2,500 brands via its flash-sales model. SOPA acquired Leflair’s assets in February 2021 and relaunched Leflair back onto the Vietnam market in September 2021.
For more information, please check out:www.leflair.com.
About Loic Gautier
Loic Gautier is a Southeast Asia-based French e-commerce entrepreneur and retail expert. Prior to being an entrepreneur, Loic was in charge of business development for multinational ecommerce companies such as Groupon (Europe) and Lazada (Asia). Loic founded Leflair in 2015 and ran the company as the CEO for almost 5 years. During that time, Leflair raised in total 12 million USD in venture capital funding and expanded to 3 other markets before the brand was acquired by SoPa in 2021.
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