Shein Needs To Stop Outsourcing Responsibility For Its Apparel Juggernaut.
By Michael Posner
Shein, the largest and fastest-growing apparel company in the world, is getting ready to go public. It is reportedly about to file a prospectus with Britain's Financial Conduct Authority for approval to launch a public offering of shares valued in total at about $63 billion on the London Stock Exchange. According to Sky News, U.K. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt met with Shein CEO Donald Tang earlier this year to offer his support. Inexplicably, the Labour Party, which professes to care about workers’ rights, also has indicated its support for Shein’s application. A Labour Party spokesperson told the Guardian, “Raising investment, productivity and growth is one of Labour’s missions for government.”
Last November, the company first sought to go public in the US creating the expectation that it would launch one of the largest initial public offerings in history. When Shein filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) it did so confidentially, a common practice to avoid disclosure of sensitive data. But in an unusual move, the SEC told Shein that its application would not be accepted unless it was made in a public filing.
Shein has yet to make its SEC application public, undoubtedly weary of the increased scrutiny this would generate from the U.S. Congress, news media and the consuming public, especially relating to the company’s reported sourcing of cotton from Xinjiang, China. In February, Senator Marco Rubio urged SEC Commissioner Gary Gensler to block Shein’s IPO unless the company provided details of its relationship and interaction with the Chinese government.
Read the full Forbes article.
___
Michael Posner is the Jerome Kohlberg Professor of Ethics and Finance, Professor of Business and Society and Director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.