The reason conglomerates exist is so that when one area of the business is slowing, the others are hopefully growing.
For LVMH, 2010 is proving to be a good year for not just a few, but all of its subsidiaries.
Sales over the first half of 2010 totaled €9.1 billion, or about $11.8 billion, a 16% jump from the first half of 2009. Everything from wine and spirits to Louis Vuitton to Sephora to Donna Karan are performing well everywhere from the US to Asia. What’s more, profits were up by a whopping 33% to €1.8 million, or around $2.3 million.
With things looking this good, expect LVMH to do some buying and selling come August. Big luxury brands tend to do the deals at the end of summer–probably because Europe is on vacation, which means less snooping around by the press. So while PPR’s vie for Burberry could be the biggest deal of the year, except something interesting from LVMH, too. Indeed, luxury brands are really killing it this year.
Tags: Burberry, Donna Karan, Louis Vuitton, LVMH, PPR, Sephora



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interesting how that worked out for luxury brands, given that the recession made sales in lower-end retail spike up at first. The fashion world never did make sense.