L'Occitane acquires a fragrance brand, McDonald's China joins hands with Cainiao, and the founder of Hanhou reveals the debt repayment process丨Brand Daily

L'Occitane acquires an Italian fragrance brand

A few days ago, L'Occitane Group announced that it will acquire Dr. Vranjes Firenze, an Italian home fragrance brand, and the transaction is expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of this year. However, according to people familiar with the matter, the acquisition amount of L'Occitane is expected to be about 150 million euros.

Founded in 1983 by Dr. Paolo Vranjes, the luxury fragrance brand now has 28 boutiques and 650 authorized outlets, and its products are sold in more than 75 countries.

The seller of the deal is private equity fund BlueGem, which acquired Dr. Gem in 2017. 70% stake in Vranjes Firenze. Over the past six years, Dr. Vranjes Firenze's sales have more than tripled and are expected to exceed €42 million by 2023, with an EBITDA margin of more than 30 percent, with strong growth in digital channels, which contribute more than one-quarter of the brand's revenue.

Dr. Vranjes Firenze has also successfully entered the Asian and Middle East markets with the launch of new fragrances and scented candles. On the occasion of the brand's 40th anniversary in 2023, a limited-time fragrance exhibition was also held at the Shanghai Shamei Building.

The Asia-Pacific region is the regional market with the most L'Occitane stores in the Asia-Pacific region and achieved a sales growth of 19% in the first half of the latest fiscal year 2024. However, from a regional perspective, the Americas region significantly outperformed Asia Pacific and EMEA in terms of sales and same-store sales growth during the period. The addition of Dr. Vranjes Firenze may bring some new changes to L'Occitane in the future.

McDonald's China Cooperative Cainiao: Start with the RFID project

McDonald's China has made new progress in the digitalization of its business.

A few days ago, McDonald's China and Cainiao Group signed a strategic cooperation agreement on supply chain digitalization. According to the agreement, the two parties will start with the radio frequency identification (RFID) project to carry out cooperation in the direction of supply chain digitalization and automation.

One of the changes is that McDonald's China will implant rookie RFID tags on food packaging materials, so that goods have a unique "digital ID" in the "production-logistics-restaurant" link. In the RFID pilot project jointly promoted by the two parties, the daily inventory time of the restaurant has been reduced from 1 hour to 15 minutes, and the accuracy of inventory data has been increased by 30%.

China's catering industry, which is dominated by small and micro catering, has limited progress in digitalization and has mainly focused on downstream stores in the past. According to a survey data, the proportion of online orders for catering companies is more than 60%, and the supply chain dimension is only about 14%.

However, Western-style fast food, represented by McCann, is an exception. Based on nearly 5,800 restaurants, McDonald's China has about 150 million 90-day active users, and they also plan to increase this number to 250 million by 2027, with a 100% localized data and IT team.

The effect of digital investment in the supply chain will not always be reflected in the consumer's ordering, but the operational efficiency and food safety will depend on it. In the context of the expectation of McDonald's China's strong stores exceeding 10,000 stores in 2028, the digitalization of the supply chain has been prepared in advance.

The founder of Hanhou revealed the process of repaying debts

After selling 300 suites and disposing of the 1.5 billion debt on his body in five years, Wang Guoan, the founder of Hanhou, responded to this mental journey in an exclusive interview with "Chinese Entrepreneur" a few days ago.

In 2018, Wang Guoan was involved in a personal debt dispute of 15 million yuan, which led to the merger and listing of Hanhou, which was originally scheduled to be worth 2 billion yuan, and the ensuing series of chain reactions made Wang Guoan once burdened with a debt of 1.5 billion yuan. Before this, Wang Guoan was also on the hot search for auctioning personal real estate to repay debts.

According to Wang Guoan, there were about 3,000 employees at the peak of Hanhou, and their monthly wages were 20 to 30 million yuan, with "revenue of more than 1 billion yuan", and now there are only 160 people left, and 2 million yuan of wages are issued every month, but he said that although there is not much capital expansion, "live well", with a revenue of 4-500 million yuan in 2023.

Born in the golden age of the rise of domestic skin care products, Han Hou has missed at least two window of opportunity in the past six years, one is the brand dividend of live broadcast e-commerce, and the recent wave of consumer investment and financing, which has spawned new effective skin care brands. After disposing of the debt, Wang Guoan is still trying to catch the last train of the live broadcast, although the traffic does not seem to come decently, and it is the attention of the outside world that he has obtained by selling his house to repay his debts, but he still hopes to give birth to a "second curve".

what's more

ANTA pre-discloses business information for 2023

Anta handed over a preliminary report card. Today, ANTA announced its latest operating performance for the fourth quarter and full year of 2023. According to public relations, in the fourth quarter of 2023, the retail sales of the ANTA brand, FILA brand and all other brands increased by 10-20%, 25%-30% and 55%-60% respectively. For the whole year of 2023, the retail sales of the above-mentioned brand businesses will achieve "high single-digit", 10%-20%, and 60%-65% growth, respectively.

Hermès opens a new store in Wuxi

The pace of Hermès stores has picked up. According to the official, Hermes officially opened a new store in Wuxi Henglong Plaza yesterday. It is reported that the store is divided into two floors, selling a complete 16 product series of the brand, and the first floor sells silk fabrics, fashion accessories, perfume area, men's ready-to-wear area, and men's shoes area. On the second floor, there is a women's ready-to-wear, footwear area, equestrian accessories, home collections, jewellery and watches, as well as a private lounge.

Barbour上个财年营收增长但利润下降

Barbour has had a bumpy year. According to Gorgeous Zhi, J Barbour & Sons Litmited, the parent company of British outdoor fashion brand Barbour, recently disclosed the results of the fiscal year ending April 2023, showing that the turnover during the period reached 340 million pounds, an increase of 19.7% year-on-year, but the net profit fell from 33.8 million pounds to 28.1 million pounds. In response, J Barbour & Sons admits that it has not been able to raise prices in line with cost increases.

LV Nanjing IFC store was officially opened

LV landed in another luxury shopping mall. According to fashion without borders, Louis Vuitton (Louis Vuitton) Nanjing IFC store officially opened a few days ago. The store has two floors of retail space, with separate men's and women's stores, with a total area of more than 1,650 square metres. The boutique showcases the full range of Louis Vuitton products, including women's and men's ready-to-wear, leather goods, travel goods, accessories, shoes, watches, fine jewelry, fragrances and art de vivre, as well as two VIP lounges. It is worth mentioning that Nanjing IFC is the third IFC project in China, and it just opened for trial operation on January 3.

Moutai's "Mao Xiaoling" will achieve revenue of more than 430 million yuan in 2023

The rejuvenation of Moutai has achieved some results. Recently, at the "Mao Xiaoling" food market work meeting, Moutai's young brand "Mao Xiaoling" will achieve an operating income of more than 430 million yuan in 2023, an increase of 58.24% year-on-year, exceeding the annual target, and achieving a revenue target of nearly 600 million yuan in 2024. Among them, on the first anniversary of its listing, Moutai Ice Cream sold nearly 10 million cups, and on the first day of listing, the sales volume of "Sauce Latte" exceeded 5.42 million cups, with sales exceeding 100 million yuan.