The third principal luxury goods purveyor in the world Richemont has just provided a financial profit analysis which discussed the fact that their profits are down this year in contrast to last year.
The head of the Board gave an interview on Wednesday to a throng of journalists where he was quoted as saying that the business would earn less than last year but had taken steps including a freeze on hiring as well as reassessing the number of jobs within the business currently, so that the company would see out this specific financial crisis.
Many onlookers in Europe are hoping for a significant reversal in the financial mood within the next six months, however retail merchants especially are bracing themselves for a tough third and fourth quarter, although they will be pleased if they are wrong.
He did not calculate any turnabout in the US luxury watch market just yet and was unwilling to forecast whether the financial crisis in Europe had really reach the bottom of the trough yet; he in fact indicated that the financial crisis was still in full swing, and could have a little bit more to give.
Some have suggested that the requirement for the majority of costly watches like the Zodiac watches has been hit very hard, although the Richemont brand isn’t showing the same signs of having been as dramatically effected as hard as some of the brands in the Swiss watch market.
However other markets have taken up the slack including the Chinese market which Richemont disclosed would be its one biggest market within three years; quite plausibly overtaking that of Japan.
It could be said that the business did not contrive to take over or adopt any additional companies at the present moment as it was not a primary priority, however Richemont could well afford some acquisitions primarily due to the liquidity levels in the business of over 820 million at the end of March this year. The CEO also repeated that should more funds be called for, these could be easily got at via the normal capital markets, and only this particular strategy is not a priority at present.
