The Millet Mountain Group, which owns the Millet, Eider and Lafuma mountain sports brands, increased sales by 11.0 percent in the first half of the year despite Europe’s very warm winter.
The group generated sales of €40.8 million, compared with €36.8 million in the first half of 2015, according to Calida Group, which upped its stake in the brand’s French parent company Group Lafuma from 60 to 72 percent in April. Operating contribution increased 43.5 percent, from €3.1 million to €4.5 million.
Sales grew 10.9 percent at the flagship Millet brand and 20.6 percent at the Lafuma brand, marking the first period of double-digit growth for either since Calida Group acquired control of the brands in late 2013. Only the specialty ski brand Eider saw sales go down, by 3.2 percent, as a result of the unseasonably warm weather.
Despite the growth, Calida Group said, the Millet Mountain Group faces tough headwinds.
“Owing to unsatisfactory sales by our retailing customers last winter, they still have high levels of inventory in this very seasonal business,” Calida reported. “As a result, orders this spring for the autumn/winter collection 2016 were subdued, and lower than in the previous year. Management is currently developing measures to compensate for this.”
At the surf lifestyle brand Oxbow, which is also part of Group Lafuma, sales fell 5.5 percent to €12.9 million, largely because of lower spending and tourism in France, where it derives 90 percent of its sales. Oxbow’s operating contributions increased 27.1 percent to €2.7 million thanks to cost cutting and preseason orders for the fall/winter season.
Calida Group CEO Reiner Pichler, who was promoted April 1, expects to present the results of a strategic review of all its businesses to shareholders this autumn. Calida is named for the Swiss apparel brand of the same name and also owns the apparel brand Aubades, which earns two thirds of its sales in France.
“We are assuming that economic conditions will not improve in the second half of the year, in part because of the still largely unknown consequences of Brexit,” Pichler and Calida Group Chairman Dr. Thomas Lustenberger wrote in a letter to shareholders. “Negative pre-orders at Millet Mountain Group and investments in the development of the individual brands Millet, Lafuma and Eider will weigh down results for the second half of 2016, and thus for the year as a whole.”
