French luxury group PPR soon to be known as Kering?

Logical name change for a changed company

According to press agency Bloomberg the French
company deposited the name at the US Patent & Trademark’s Office in November of last year. The name Kering (pronounce as “caring”) will be used for
all their activities, going from fashion to leather.

The choice for luxury goods is logical: at
the moment Gucci, Bottega, Veneta, Saint-Laurent and others bring in 64% of
total sales (9.7 billion euro in 2012) and they generate 84% of recurring
profit, while other branches, like Fnac and La Redoute, showed a loss of 276 million euro in 2012. At
the moment PPR is worth 21.9 billion euro on the stock market. Its stock has
soared this year, with a rise of 23% so far.

PPR without P and R

The name change should be the climax of a
transformation, in which the group sold the chain Conforama (2010) and two home
shopping subsidiaries (end of February 2013). This spring PPR will also bring
entertainment chain Fnac to the stock exchange, while news about the sale of
Redcats (La Redoute) is expected later this year.

Without all those retail activities the current
name would not fit the bill anymore, but communications manager Louise Beveridge
refused to comment about the rumour of a name change. For the French group it
would be the fourth name change since 1988. Back then the company operated as
Pinault, which later changed to Pinault-Printemps, then Pinault-Printemps-La
Redoute and until further notice PPR.