Aeffe keeps up momentum with a 35% increase in year-to-date profit

By

Dominique Muret

Published
Nov 8, 2018

Aeffe is keeping up momentum, maintaining steady progress in the first nine months of 2018. Growth at the Italian fashion group, which owns Alberta Ferretti, Philosophy, Moschino and the Pollini footwear brand, was driven by its flagship Moschino label and sales in multi-brand stores in its principal markets Italy, Europe and Asia, while revenues declined in the US, as well as in Russia in the third quarter. 

The company, which is based in San Giovanni in Marignano, near Rimini, saw its net profit jump up 35.2% from the 11.9 million euros reported for the third quarter ended 30 September 2017 to 16.1 million a year later. This is, nonetheless, a slow down in the group's growth, as over the last two years its profits tripled in the same nine-month period. In Q3 2018, Aeffe reported a 6.7% rise in profit to 7.8 million euros. As for revenue, the company reported a year-to-date increase of 12.6% to 246.6 million euros and a 10% rise in the third quarter to 93.5 million euros. 

Once again, Moschino proved to be the engine driving the growth of the group, where the ready-to-wear division accounted for 70% of total sales. The label led by Jeremy Scott, which provides 71.8% of all of the group's revenue, saw sales rise 16.3% to almost 190 million euros from January to September 2018, and increase 15.5% in the third quarter. 

Only Lorenzo Serafini's Philosophy line showed the same dynamism, reporting rises of 13% year to date to 14.6 million euros, and 13.7% in the third quarter. However, the label only accounts for 5.5% of the group's total sales. 

Year to date, the company's Alberta Ferretti brand saw sales rise 6.3%, and Pollini reported an increase of 2.7%, while also posting a decline of 6.8% in the last quarter. The company's other operations, which currently represent less than 3% of its total revenue and include licenses for the Jeremy Scott and Cédric Charlier brands, experienced a 23.1% drop in sales in Q3 and a 9.9% decline year to date. 

From a geographical perspective, Aeffe's sales rose 27.4% year to date in Asia; 11.2% in Italy – the company's largest market, accounting for 48.7% of total revenue –; 9.9% in Europe excluding Italy and Russia (the group's second largest market, contributing 20.3% of revenue); and 1.8% in Russia, where sales plummeted 19.3% in the third quarter. Sales also declined 9.9% in the United States year to date, and 14.4% in Q3. 

Since January, Aeffe has made 190 million euros through sales in multi-brand stores, making up 72% of the company's total revenue in the period and equating to a rise of 15.8% compared to the first nine months of 2017. Sales in company-owned stores increased 3.9%.