Profits shine at Richemont

Richemont beats off the economic slowdown Keystone Archive

The luxury goods group, Richemont, has seen its 2000/2001 operating profit rise by 33 per cent to €712 million (SFr1.1 billion), helped by sales of expensive watches and jewellery.

Releasing the figures on Thursday, the Swiss company, which owns a portfolio of leading brand names, also plans for a 100-for-one share split. The proposal follows changes to Swiss company law permitting lower nominal values per share.

Sales at the company increased by 26 per cent to €3.6 billion, with jewellery sales rising 31 per cent and watch sales 28 per cent.

“These results demonstrate the group’s considerable expertise in its core business of jewellery and luxury watches,” said Richemont’s chief executive, Johann Rupert.

The company brands include: Cartier, Montblanc, Alfred Dunhill, Lancel, Van Cleef and Arpels, and watchmakers Baume and Mercier, Officine Panerai, Piaget and Vacheron Constantin.

Richemont has already reported a 21 per cent increase in sales over its third quarter from October to December, which includes the all-important Christmas sales season.

The rise was in line with company expectations but below the 28 per cent jump in the last quarter of the 1999 calendar year when Millennium celebrations led to even more lavish outlays.

The fourth quarter of Richemont’s financial year, to March, was the first quarter in which the group, which has its roots in South Africa, consolidated the recently acquired watch brands of Jaeger-LeCoultre, IWC and A Lange and Söhne.

swissinfo with agencies