French Clothing Giant Vivarte SAS Officially Launched Shoe Brand Sales Business

According to the world clothing shoes and hats net, France

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After SAS resumed its core profit EBITDA growth in 2017, CEO Patrick Puy announced that the group has been on track, and growth and profitability have been achieved.

Vivarte SAS still recorded a net loss of 301 million euros in the fiscal year ended August 2017, but it has narrowed by more than half of its 672 million euros in 2016.

EBITDA was 84 million euros, the first increase in six years.

Last year, the group sold French shoe brand Pataugas and women's clothing.

Brand Kooka and Spanish store shoe retailer Merkal Calzados and other loss businesses.

Patrick Puy today announced that it would announce the buyers of the French shoe brand Andr and the fashion brand Naf Naf in a week, of which Andr's buyer is willing to take over all the stores and employees. He expects to complete the paction in three and April.

Vivarte SAS also officially launched the sale of shoe brand Besson Chaussures.

Patrick Puy said that although stripping Besson Chaussures is not part of the debt reduction plan, it can reduce competition between Vivarte SAS's largest brand La Halle.

In last year's debt restructuring agreement, Besson Chaussures was also a member of the six core brands of Vivarte SAS.

At that time, the group promised to focus on the development of La Halle, Besson, Minelli, San Marina, CosmoParis and Caroll with 95 million euros from the sale of assets.

Patrick Puy promises that Besson Chaussures is the last brand to sell, but Michel Peyraga, the representative of trade union CFTC, doubts this. He believes that although debt has been lightened, it still exists.

As of August 30th, the debt of Vivarte SAS was 574 million euros, and the consortium of four creditors was exempt from debt of 864 million euros in the debt restructuring agreement. Patrick Puy believes that the debt can be further reduced to 300 million euros by 2019.

Since the financial situation has improved, Vivarte SAS has decided to retain the Cowboy brand Chevignon in view of the fact that it has not received the appropriate offer, and will pform this mode by reducing the physical stores and accelerating the online development mode.

In 2017, Vivarte SAS achieved 1 billion 768 million euro income (20.9% less than 2 billion 235 million euros in 2016), and La Halle contributed more than half.

Patrick Puy said the group had bought too many brands because of its arrogance. After restructuring, the number of brands has been reduced from 16 to about 7.

In 2015, the group closed nearly 300 stores and reduced more than 1600 jobs. In the early February 2016, it further laid off 600 people, and France attracted widespread attention in the high unemployment rate.

While continuing to streamline its business, Vivarte SAS has a 80 million euro investment budget in 2018, and most of it will be used to refurbish stores and upgrade IT systems.

Patrick Puy expects EBITDA this year to further improve to more than 100 million euros.

In addition to fierce market competition and poor self management, Vivarte SAS has twice failed in the past couple of years because of LBO failure.

In 2007, Charterhouse Capital Partners LLP, a British private equity fund, bought Vivarte SAS from the French partner Pai Partners with a valuation of 3 billion 460 million euros, bringing the group up to 1 billion 800 million euros in debt.

With the outbreak of the financial crisis, the mass consumer sentiment is low with the rapid rise of fast fashion brands. The Vivarte SAS performance is getting worse and worse. After the debt restructuring in 2014, the group was jointly owned by four investment funds Alcentra Ltd., Babson Capital Management LLC, Oaktree Capital Group and the creditors.

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