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Closing the haute couture week in Paris on January 25th was the spectacular Maison Margiela Artisanal Collection 2024 fashion show, in pure John Galliano style, which garnered enthusiastic comments in both critics’ reviews and Instagram stories. Maison Margiela, together with Jil Sander, Marni and Viktor&Rolf, populates the luxury division of the Otb group, created by Renzo Rosso in 2002.
Objectives: 3 billion in revenues by 2026 and listing
At the time, the acquisition of the controlling share of Margiela was the first step with which the Venetian entrepreneur began to build a fashion group around Diesel, founded in 1978. Over 20 years later, these two pillars of the group – which is grew to 1.9 billion euros in revenues in 2023, +10.2% at constant exchange rates and +7.2% at current exchange rates in 2022 – remain decisive in its evolution path. Otb, which also includes two companies that produce and distribute proprietary or licensed brands, Staff International and Brave Kid, is profitable and healthy. The 2023 Ebitda stood at 348 million euros (19.6% in relation to 1.8 billion in net sales); the Ebit at 140 million (7.9%) and the net financial position is in the black for 60 million euros (pre IFRS 16). There are 7,000 employees all over the world and the short-medium term objectives are ambitious: «We would like to reach, also through acquisitions, three billion in revenues by 2025/2026 – explains Ubaldo Minelli, CEO of Otb -. The current year is proving to be particularly challenging, but we started very well in Japan, which in 2023 absorbed 23% of the total business and recorded a +19.4% in revenues. Overall I would be very happy if we grew by +7/8% in 2024.” Then there is the goal of the listing, which is getting closer and closer: «2025 could be a good year. The whole company is working in that direction.”
Diesel’s turnaround driven by Gen Z
Returning to the 2023 accounts, Diesel, which has already been in the repositioning phase for some time, was the protagonist of an important turnaround: compared to 2022, revenues increased by 13.1% at constant exchange rates. «Work on Diesel began in February 2020 – explains the CEO – and it was tiring and expensive: for example it saw us cut part of the wholesale business and invest in retail. But now let’s collect the results.” The brand, over the years, has changed its face and audience: «It was predominantly male and today it owes 50% of its revenues to womenswear. And Gen Z is very fond of it, accounting for 35% of the customer base.” The group’s accounts are driven by sales in Asia (+74%) with «China, Korea and Japan accounting for over 40% of the total turnover» says Minelli. And from the luxury brands: «Overall the division recorded +17.6% at constant exchange rates and +13.6% at current exchange rates» he specifies.
Luxury flies to Asia
In detail, Jil Sander achieved +17.3% at constant exchange rates, Marni (which will return to show in Milan next week) a more tepid +8.6% on a 2022 which, however, went particularly well and Margiela recorded a+23%: «It was a niche brand and now with Galliano it is a fashion house», comments the manager. The driver of Margiela’s growth was the purchases of young Asians: in China and Korea, in fact, sales rose by 72.4% compared to 2022. Shanghai and Seoul, not surprisingly, are two of the cities where the maison opened one of 24 new flagship stores in 2023. A year also characterized by the opening of the new headquarters in Paris, in Place des États-Unis. The property in question was among the key investments of the Otb group, which in 2023, overall, reached 201 million euros (compared to 81 million in 2022). Direct retail has been a strategic pillar of these investments: in 2023 Otb opened 76 single-brand stores, reaching 610 worldwide. With an important impact on sales: the retail channel grew by 33.8% at constant exchange rates.
Investments in the supply chain
Among the investments planned for 2024 is also an acquisition by Staff International (which follows that of Frassineti leather goods), in line with the efforts for an increasingly shorter, sustainable and digitalised supply chain already undertaken by Otb. Which in 2023 celebrated the 550 million euros of subsidized credits granted to suppliers in 10 years of the Cash project.