Jewelery, beauty, perfumes. Prada is preparing to broaden and enrich the range of products that will complement leather goods (gives 60% of turnover), clothing (20-22%) and shoes (18%), and which will have to help push the group’s turnover to 4.5 billion euros (in 2019 it was 3.2 billion), indicated as a medium-term objective (between 2024 and 2026) by the CEO, Patrizio Bertelli, on the Capital Markets Day held at the Prada Foundation from Milan.
From 2022 Prada will also design jewels
The launch in style, expected in 2022, is that of jewels. Here Bertelli plays “at home” since his city of origin (and work, in the industrial site of Valvigna) is Arezzo, one of the leading districts in jewelery and goldsmithing, also specialized in electroplating and other metal finishing techniques . “We are planning a big launch of the jewelry for next year”, explained Lorenzo Bertelli, son of Patrizio and of the creative director Miuccia Prada and candidate to take over the reins of the group when his father, 75, retires (“between two , three or five years, it doesn’t matter, the important thing is to prepare the succession well “). «Jewelery is part of the DNA of our brand – explained Bertelli father and son – only so far it has not been fully expressed. Already at the end of the seventies Miuccia had already presented a line of jewels in the Galleria in Milan ».
New focus also on beauty and perfumes
Development in sight also for the beauty and perfume sector, where Prada will continue the partnership with L’Oreal. “In 2023 we want to double the global share in perfumes,” explained the company’s top managers. For the rest, leather goods remain strategic: «We are investing to improve the positioning of leather goods products – said Patrizio Bertelli – and thus also improve the gross margin. It is a path that we have already taken in footwear ». But the clothing “will not be lost from sight because it is part of the costume”.
In the group the critical issues of Church’s and Car Shoe
As for the brands of the group (Prada, Miu Miu, Church’s and Carshoe), the driving force in post-Covid is Prada which in the first nine months of 2021 saw its turnover grow by 52% compared to the same period in 2020, exceeding the levels of 2019 ( 1.9 billion in net sales versus 1.8 billion in the pre-pandemic January-September); Miu Miu is also recovering (279 million net sales in the first nine months of 2021 against 321 million in the same period of 2019) and is in balance, said the CEO, with an improving operating result (ebit) and the aim of bringing it to 20% in the next three years, therefore by 2024. For Church’s, produced in the United Kingdom, Covid represented a tsunami: “The factory was closed for six months, the shops were closed for eight months,” said Patrizio Bertelli. Carshoe also suffered the most during the pandemic, “but we are interested in continuing both brands,” assured Bertelli.
Seventy million invested in the renovation of factories and acquisitions
The group also announced that it intends to continue its production investments to strengthen the vertical integration of the supply chain, which is a distinctive feature: after the 80 million invested in the last three years, 70 million euros have been allocated for 2022 which will be used to strengthen the 23 existing factories (of which 20 in Italy) and to make acquisitions “if opportunities arise” (the latest was that of 40% of the Biagioli yarn company from Montale-Pistoia, acquired in tandem with Zegna which has another 40 %, see here).