Market Pulse | Luxury stocks bounce back following Japan crisis

Intelligence | Market Pulse

Savigny Luxury Index March 2011 | Source: Savigny Partners

Today,  BoF welcomes Pierre Mallevays as a contributing editor and launches Market Pulse, a monthly look at how the fashion news that everyone is talking about is impacting stock market movements. Big news: • John Galliano dismissed from Dior days before the A/W 2011 fashion shows resulting in a PR crisis and leaving the brand without a creative director • LVMH announces the surprise take-over of Bulgari, valuing the business at

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BoF Exclusive | UK fashion start-up Fabricly secures seed funding from Y Combinator

Market Pulse

LONDON, United Kingdom — Despite the well-documented technological advancements in the consumer-facing elements of the fashion value chain — marketing, PR and retail — there are still huge opportunities for optimising manufacturing and wholesale activities using technology, especially for smaller fashion companies which typically use Excel and other manual tools to stay on top of everything. So, when an enterprising start-up offers to do this in a way that is not cost-prohibitive, The Business of Fashion is bound to be interested. I first met Ari Helgason last year when he introduced me to World on a Hanger, a London-based start-up focused on streamlining the manufacturing process for independent fashion companies (see explanatory video here). Since then, Ari and his business…

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Fashion Investing | Small-cap M&A Volume up in January 2009

Intelligence | Market Pulse

NEW YORK, United States — Just before the madness of fashion week started, I read an interesting study by KTA Capital, an independent investment bank based in New York. The report analyses small-cap market activity for the month of January 2009 globally, as well as in selected national markets. The first section is not a surprise: “There has been a substantial reduction in the amount of corporate finance activity

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Luxury Outlook | Hermès continues to defy gravity

Intelligence | Market Pulse

Savigny Luxury Index Since Jan 1, 2007, Courtesy of Savigny Partners

LONDON, United Kingdom — It’s all been a bit doom and gloom around here for months now, and I’m afraid the latest Savigny Luxury Index (SLI) does not deviate from this theme. Valuation multiples have dropped from a peak of 13x EBITDA (operating profit) in June 2007 to 8.5x EBITDA just before Christmas, effectively wiping billions off of the market capitalisation of luxury stocks. But there is still some good news for

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Fashion investing | Return of the strategic investor?

Intelligence | Market Pulse

Apax Partners, the London-based private equity firm, has abandoned its bid to take a stake in Escada AG, the embattled German fashion company.  Citing deteriorating market conditions, Apax stated that "the recent evolution of the stock price and the weakness of the international financial market do not give a basis for pursuing the project." This is absolutely the right decision. Not only has Escada become somewhat of an industry basket-case in recent years, on Wednesday the company also revised its earnings projections for year ending October 31 downwards yet again. EBITDA margins are  expected to fall by about 25% compared to 2007. The company cited recessionary conditions in the USA and other key markets as the reason behind the revisions.…

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