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Fashion group Liz Claiborne is planning to sell Mexx in an attempt to cover its debts. Analysts fear however that this will take more than the 70 million euro ask price – probably more than 140 million. 

14 consecutive quarters with a loss

When Liz Claiborne bought Mexx, in 2001, the latter was still a flourishing company. The last four years however, its turnover has dropped from $1.25 billion to $731 million (€508 million), causing a loss in each of its latest fourteen quarters. Now Liz Claiborne is rumoured to have started talks witl private equity firms Leonard Green & Partners, Sun Capital and Golden Gate Capital to take over Mexx, although previous owners Rattan Chada and Adu Advaney would also be interested in buying 'their' brand again. The transaction is supposed to be concluded in September.

An anonymous source at Bloomberg mentioned however that Liz Claiborne wants to retain a small part of Mexx as a proof of its belief in the brand. They keep their goal to reach the break-even point with Mexx at the end of next year. With one third of the total turnover of Liz Claiborne, Mexx is the company's biggest daughter. Other Claiborne-owned chains are Juicy Couture and Kate Spade.

On 17 November, H&M will start selling an “affordable Versace collection” designed by Donatella Versace. A second collection will be available starting from next January. The Swedish fashion chain is trying the big guns to stop the falling consumer spendings.

A typical Versace collection

The collection will use “lots of colours, prints and leather”, said la Donatella, “so the designs will be typical Versace”. Margareta van den Bosch, creative advisor at H&M, said that “Versace is one of the most important brands of recent times, and their collection for H&M will be glamorous and flamboyant”.

Donatella Versace joins an impressive list of designers who worked with H&M in the last few years, including also Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney, Comme des Garçons, Jimmy Choo and  Lanvin.

Disappointing half-year results

H&M will need the new collection to save their year, as their half-year results suffer from high cotton prices and low consumer spendings. While the turnover rose only 2% to 27.6 billion Swedish crowns (3 billion euro), earnings for the March-May period have gone down 18% to 4.3 billion crowns (471 million euro) - “challenging market conditions”, according to the Swedish powerhouse.

VF Corporation has launched a 2.3 billion dollar takeover bid on shoe producers Timberland. The bid, worth 1.5 billion euro, is so high because “Timberland are shoes of the highest quality and it will be a perfect match with our The North Face brand”, says VF's chairman Eric Wiseman. VF will pay $43 per Timberland share, 43% more than the closing price on Friday.

In the family since 1952

Timberland was founded in 1952 by Nathan Swartz and has remained in the family ever since. The company's peak was in the nineties – when rappers popularised the brand – but has lost its popularity since then. With one exception, Timberland's sales have dropped continuously since 2005.

For the rich... and the Chinese

Wiseman said the will raise Timberland's turnover, currently 1.6 billion dollar, with 10%, pointing to the 'huge potential' the Chinese market offers and to the current boom in the outdoor market. The latter is largely fuelled by rich people's desire to spend money on quality products that they will never wear in the places they were made for – even during global crises.

After the takeover is complete, VF's sports brands will make up for half of the group's turnover of 10 billion dollar. The group's main brands are Eastpak, Kipling, Nautica, Lee Jeans and Wrangler.

Fashion chain Mango has restyled its logo to be “more attractive to the more mature female customer”. The second largest Spanish fashion producer has launched its new logo at its Parisian fashion show.

The new logo (upper) and the old logo (lower)

Logo follows store evolution

“The new, simpler typology is more adapted to the needs of the modern day Mango woman”, says the Catalan fashion house. Loyal fans had already noticed a change in collection, store design and communication.

Mango has the second biggest export volumes of any Spanish fashion chain, just behind Zara's Inditex. The group has over 2000 stores in 105 countries and realises over 80% of its 1.27 billion euro turnover outside of Spain. Last year, the turnover rose 11%, largely because of the 380 new stores it opened worldwide in 2010 – only seven of which in Spain.

In Belgium, there are 19 Mango stores and its clothing can also be found in many multi-brand stores.

German lifestyle group s.Oliver has realised one if its biggest growths ever: by breaching the 1 billion euro barrier for its 2010 turnover, the group grew 19.8% last year. The group called the 1.07 billion euro turnover “one of its most successful achievements ever”.

Big grow in wholesale, huge growth in retail

Owing to a new shop concept and several new stores on key locations, the retail activities generated 443 million euro – up to 35% of the group's total. Notable successes were the new flagship stores in Oldenburg and Freiburg, the 'vintage' store in Stuttgart and the very first accessory shop in Frankfurt. In total, s.Oliver opened 30 own stores and 49 franchise stores last year.

The group's main activity remains wholesale, despite the huge growth of its own retail and the 'slower' growth of wholesale (still a very respectable 10.85%): the latter generated slightly over half of the yearly turnover (537.8 million euro). Franchising is far behind with only 85.4 million euro of yearly turnover.

Home sweet home, Belgium main foreign market

Home market Germany remains the biggest country for s.Oliver, but export rose to 27% of the group's sales. Belgium is the main foreign market – followed by the Netherlands, Austria and Poland. The group started a separate division for Hungary last year, as well as a joint venture for Slovenia and Croatia.

2011 will be another year of major expansion for s.Oliver, focussing on Eastern Europe and Asia. 36 new shops have already been opened this year, raising the total to 183 own and 312 franchise stores. The group employs 6470 people in over 30 countries.
 

While almost every company in the world talks about “corporate social responsibility”, only very few companies really take another step. Puma on the other hand has announced that it is adopting one of CSR's most radical ideas: the “triple bottom line”. While a normal, “single bottom line” only totals the financial profits and losses, the “triple bottom line” includes two other criteria: social impact and environmental footprint.

Following the "dean of CSR"

Puma is one of the first companies in the world (parent holding PPR proudly states “the very first one”) to adopt an “Environmental Profit and Loss” account to make its social and ecological actions visible in its financial accounts. Its aim to include not only numbers that matter to the stakeholders, but also those that matter to the workers and the planet closely resembles the “triple bottom line accounting” proposed by British CSR authority John Elkington in 1988. The “dean of the CSR movement” stated to be very pleased with Puma's move towards social responsible action. 

Extra debt: 94.4 million

In a first phase, Puma will include CO2-emissions (e.g. by cows used for leather production), the use of water (for cotton growth) and the damage done by chemicals; the three add up to a debt to the planet of 94.4 million euro in 2010.  A second phase would include other environmental issues like waste disposal and use of land, but also social aspects like honest wages and working conditions. On the plus side of the “second and third bottom line”, Puma wants to include the creation of jobs and charity projects. 

Encouraging other companies to join

For proponents of corporate social responsibility, this new system is a milestone: the 'E P&L' finally allows to assign a monetary value to the environmental impact of corporate decisions: a very important tool to convince shareholders and managers of the “good cause” using hard data. PPR hopes that other companies soon will follow its example: “Puma and PPR want to be a catalyst for others to join an industry-wide engagement. We hope that other companies too would integrate into their business models the true costs of their reliance on ecosystem services.” Jochen Zeitz, chairman  of Puma, also states that “PPR will encourage and collaborate with the industry to adopt this tool”. 

Ambitious goals for 2015

Apart from raising awareness and setting a good example, Puma's goal for the next four years is reducing its use of energy, carbon and water by 25% and raising the proportion of sustainable packaging to 100%. The big cat will also address all its suppliers to help them in this quest.

Pop up stores have become a familiar sight in trendy cities, in every possible color or size. In Italy, fashion brand Lilla has invented a new kind the world hasn't seen before: the store that sells designer clothing and accessories by the kilo.

The very aptly named "Kilo Fascion" opened in Italy's fashion capital Milan and will be open till July. Its principle is simple: there are three categories: cheap, average and expensive. Customers just browse through the store, take whatever they want (up to 10 pieces per person) and just weigh and pay. Simply genious!