There’s no point in producing when nobody buys. This observation made Friday by Jérôme Lambert, CEO of Richemont, testifies to the uncertainty facing the world number two luxury. He was speaking on a conference call to present the group’s annual results. They report a net profit of 931 million euros (-67%), far from the consensus forecasts of analysts at AWP (1.25 billion). Revenues of 14.24 billion (+ 2%), on the other hand, are in line with expectations.
If Richemont claims to have performed well until January, the situation has worsened with the spread of the Covid-19. In the fourth quarter of its 2019-2020 fiscal year, the group saw its global sales drop by 18%. In Hong Kong, the decline reached -67%. Added to this is the fact that the previous year was driven by a gain of 1.38 billion euros, linked in particular to the revaluation of the shares of the online sales platform Yoox Net-A-Porter, acquired by Richemont in 2018. Corrected for this effect, Richemont’s profit fell 34%.
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