2013
Philippe Benacin: 2013 was a very good year for us. It started with one quarter of sales with Burberry (because it was the end of the contract and we had the chance to achieve €100 million in sales which is a very high result, more than expected), so it helped the operating income for the full year. Then we had major launches which appeared to be really good. First, we started with Flash by Jimmy Choo, so we extend the offer on Jimmy Choo with Flash, the second line; then Van Cleef & Arpels, Rêve; Repetto, which was a major launch for France also, even though Repetto is not so famous outside of France it was really great in France and enabled us to achieve a high result, ranking in the first twenty lines in 2013; then Place Vendôme by Boucheron. So, globally, a very good year; nice sales result and a very good operating result.
Repetto
Repetto, as you may know, is a brand that is linked to dance. It’s very original for a fragrance to be linked to dance because there is no competition in that area. So Repetto is very well known in France also with a large number of doors and a large offer in terms of ballerinas. So it helped a lot and Repetto ranked well and was really well in demand, with a strong support from the stores. All the retail stores supported Repetto at a very high level and on top of that the consumers liked the product. So it was extremely good for the company, the highest launch ever in France and the highest result in terms of sales volume or bottle volume.
2014 outlook
2014 is a very important year also because we are restarting with Karl Lagerfeld in March this year. Karl is a major launch and Karl is supposed to be a pillar of the company in the future. Karl is supposed to replace Burberry. We will not replace Burberry immediately of course because it took 20 years to grow Burberry, but Karl is important in the future of the company. Then there is Mont Blanc Emblem, which is also very important, because we had already the launch of Legend which was very successful and Emblem should help the whole franchise to grow. And at the end of the year, Jimmy Choo for men. Jimmy Choo is not so legitimate in the men’s category, but after the different presentations, it appears to be really good and we felt that all our partners were very enthusiastic about Jimmy Choo for men. So it will be in September. Globally we have a very good year ahead.
Longer-term ambitions
In the longer term, of course, all the brands have to develop. We know that we have four brands - Lanvin, Mont Blanc, Jimmy Choo and Karl Lagerfeld - that have a huge potential, that could be in the €100 million each and then we have the rest of the portfolio which is growing nicely, which means that the target is to come back to €400-500 million in the future, which could take three or four years. There is no date because we are still expecting the result of Karl and Emblem in order to redraft the business plan.
Is external growth necessary?
Acquisition is a good question and we are looking at acquisitions on a permanent basis. But, as you may know, opportunities are very limited. None of our competitors like selling their licence or selling their brand, which means that we can only do acquisitions under an opportunistic point of view and it happens sometimes, it doesn’t happen also sometimes. But we are looking very strongly at all the different opportunities.
