Online fast-fashion retailer Shein has been racing to hide remarks by its chair that claim it is essentially an “American company”, as the group’s efforts to distance itself from its Chinese roots threaten to derail approval for an IPO in the west.
In a speech at the Milken Institute conference in Los Angeles last month, executive chair Donald Tang claimed its corporate values meant Shein could be considered a US company, reigniting the debate about its origins and prompting employees to try to quell reports of his remarks as they gained attention in China.
The disjointed messaging around “where Shein is from” matters because Beijing has yet to formally greenlight the group’s application to list outside China, despite Shein submitting materials to the China Securities Regulatory Commission last November.