Multiply Group Fuels Tendam’s Ambitious Expansion in Fashion Retail

Tendam’s 2025-2030 strategic plan has begun and, although the first months have been relatively calm, the company is now launching an “aggressive growth agenda”, in the words of its president and CEO, Jaume Miquel. The closing of the acquisition of 67.91% of the capital of the Spanish group by Multiply Group allows the company to launch a new phase of development in which it will rely on corporate operations to grow at double digits from 2026.

Last February, Multiply Group, an Abu Dhabi-based company dedicated to investment, announced the purchase of Tendam, which in recent years had been considering going public in search of an exit for its historical shareholders, CVC and Pai. This transaction, which has been a long time in the making, is especially important because it represents the creation of a group based in Spain with the capacity to consolidate and concentrate the fragmented fashion industry.

Jaume Miquel, who participated yesterday in a meeting with journalists together with Samia Bouazza, co-founder and CEO of Multiply Group, stressed that Tendam is launching “a plan with a five-year time horizon, with double-digit growth, although not linear”. Thus, the company faces 2025 as a year of “transition” that will close with the usual growth rates, to accelerate to double digits in 2026, 2027 and 2028.

Tendam is one of the three largest Spanish fashion retail groups. However, its size is far from the first two: while Inditex’s turnover exceeds €35 billion, Mango’s exceeds €3 billion, while Tendam is above €1 billion.

Tendam faces 2025 as a year of “transition” to accelerate to double digit in 2026, 2027 and 2028

Acquisitions would be a fast way for Tendam to grow, and even more so with the support of Multiply, which wants to anchor the development of its new retail business division in Tendam. In addition to acquisitions, Tendam will also focus on geographically developing all its concepts (so far highly concentrated in Europe) and investing in digitalization.

The company, which did not specify a size target, expects 55% of development over the next five years to come from organic growth and 45% from geographic expansion, digital and acquisitions. Tendam’s management team will remain intact, with Jaume Miquel at the helm, Bouazza said yesterday.

Tendam’s first acquisitions should come in the next 24 months

New phase and acquisitions

“With this operation, a stage closes and a new era opens -said yesterday Jaume Miquel, president and CEO of Tendam-; when I joined at the end of 2016 we were a traditional multi-brand group and today we are a group with twelve own brands, more than 300 third-party brands and omnichannel.“ In the last two decades, Miquel has led the restructuring of Tendam, affected by high indebtedness, first, and the change of business model, later, betting on diversification beyond Cortefiel, Springfield or Women’secret to launch and buy brands such as Intropia.

The executive pointed out that the corporate operation will allow Tendam to “accelerate its growth model”. “In the last five years, seven brands have been launched and now it is time to develop them exponentially,“ said Miquel, who added that the roadmap includes international expansion, an “acquisition agenda” and a “decisive investment in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digitalization.“

“We are going to anchor all our future plans in retail in Tendam,“ Bouazza noted. Although neither Miquel nor Bouazza specified a planned volume of investment in acquisitions, the latter specified that it will be “very significant” and that “everything starts from Tendam’s own investment capacity,“ opening the door to operations also being financed from the Spanish company. “The Tendam of today has nothing to do with that of 2013, which allows us an aggressive growth agenda in the coming years.“

“If a great retail opportunity appears in Spain or Latin America, for example, we have the capacity to deal with it,“ said Samia Bouazza, CEO of Multiply

The CEO of Multiply Group, for her part, stressed that the Emirati group has $2 billion to invest in all its verticals, to which it does not dedicate a specific amount of capital, but reacts according to opportunities. “If a great opportunity appears in retail in Spain or Latin America, for example, we have the capacity to deal with it,“ he said.

Hand in hand with Multiply, Tendam is now beginning to draw its growth plan with acquisitions. According to Miquel, the first operations should be seen within 24 months. What kind of companies is Tendam looking for? “That are very good and add management quality, brands and profitability”, open to geographies and segments, not only focusing on men’s, women’s or intimate, but also sneakers, footwear or accessories.

Bouazza also stressed that the investments Multiply is seeking for its new retail and fashion vertical will not only focus on fashion brands, but also on the ancillary industry, with supply chain or logistics operators. “We are not just looking for brands, we are looking for complementary assets,“ he said.

Why fashion?

Multiply Group debuts with Tendam a new vertical for its investments. The company, founded in 2003 and listed, invested until now in four sectors: energy, road safety (from driving schools to public transport), communication (being the largest Arab out-of-home advertising company) and beauty (with beauty salons).

Bouazza notes that he has “a lot of confidence” in the sector. “When we decide where to put our capital, we look for sectors that are growing in double digits, aligned with market megatrends and that allow for scalable investment,“ explained the executive, who added that these are three elements she detects in fashion. “Fashion is close to the consumer and can manage the world’s megatrends, from sustainability to Artificial Intelligence,“ she detailed.