Van de Velde H1 turnover rises 0.9 percent

Van de Velde NV, a leading player from Belgium in the luxury  and fashionable women’s lingerie sector, reported 0.9 percent growth in turnover for the first half of 2012. It was calculated 98.7 million Euros (123.96 million dollars) as compared to 97.9 million Euros (122.95 million dollars) for the same period last year. The net profit recorded was 22.6 million Euros (28.38 million dollars), which entails a fall of 8 percent compared with the same period last year 24.6 million Euros (30.90 million dollars).

On a like-for-like basis (including like-for-like deliveries and excluding retail turnover of Rigby & Peller UK), consolidated turnover fell by 2.8 percent. There was a 3 percent fall in wholesale turnover. This trend is fairly general, with the exception of North America, the UK and part of Scandinavia. Within the core markets, the fall in turnover is limited in Germany. There was a fall in retail turnover at Intimacy by around 10 percent in local currency and 1.5 percent in euro. Van de Velde took over the operational management of Intimacy on May 1, 2012, and has implemented a plan that is expected to start growing turnover in early 2013.

The fall in wholesale turnover was combined with a slightly lower gross margin compared with last year, primarily due to the rise in stitching costs in China. In Europe, retail turnover at Rigby & Peller (formerly Oreia) rose by over 8 percent due to the opening of new stores in Germany and Spain.

The contribution of retail turnover at Rigby & Peller in the UK was 4.5 million Euros (5.65 million dollars) compared to 5.5 million Euros (6.91 million dollars) for the same period last year. This represents a growth of around 4.5 percent on a store-to-store basis compared with the previous year. EBITDA for the first half was 31.3 million Euros (39.31 million dollars), around 7.8 percent lower than the 34 million Euros (42.70 million dollars) for the same period last year.