Sales up at Vögele
Fashion retailer, Charles Vögele, says first quarter net sales have risen by 20.6 per cent. However, when adjusted for an increase in the number of shops and exchange rates the increase translated into a far more modest 1.5 per cent.
The Pfäffikon-based group, which gave no absolute levels over the first quarter, revealed its figures for 2000 last month. At that time the company said it expected a sales rise in 2001 of 29 per cent, an increase in earnings before interest and taxes of 12 per cent, and a net profit margin of between seven and eight per cent.
In 2000, Vögele made a net profit of SFr81 million ($47.23) on net sales of SFr1.41 billion.
The company started business in 1955 when Charles and Agnes Vögele opened a 58 square-metre store on Zurich’s Hirschengraben. The store at that time catered exclusively for scooter drivers.
It wasn’t until later in the 1950s that the group moved into mainstream clothing fashions. In the 1980s, it entered the German, Austrian, Belgian and Dutch markets.
The company is currently in the middle of a massive expansion programme in which it expects to open around 200 stores over the course of this year.
Shares in Vögele have dropped 33 per cent in value over the course of the year so far as traders were disappointed by the lower-than-expected full time figures for 2000.
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