Aeffe widens its losses in 2023

Aeffe ends 2023 still in the red. The Italian fashion group, which carried out a major reorganisation of its flagship brand Moschino last year, posted a net loss of 32.1 million euros in 2023, compared to a loss of 9 million euros a year earlier. Sales were down by 9.4% (-9% at constant exchange rates), at €318.6 million.

The company, which also owns Alberta Ferretti, the contemporary line Philisophy by Lorenzo Serafini and the shoemaker Pollini, also recorded an operating loss (Ebit) of 27.1 million euros in 2023 compared with an operating profit of 1.2 million in 2022, while its gross operating profit (Ebitda) fell sharply from 35.6 million euros in 2022 to 5.8 million a year later.

“In 2023, the contraction in margins is due both to the decline in sales and to the new strategic direction of the Moschino brand with costs related to the change in distribution model in China (from 100% wholesale to retail marketing) and the start of the repositioning plan for the various Moschino collections,” the company said in a statement.

“2023 has been a year of transition for our group, which has seen a radical reorganisation of the Moschino brand, both creatively and in terms of distribution, and at the same time a transformation of its internal structure through a series of mergers and incorporations of companies,” supports Aeffe executive chairman Massimo Ferretti.

For the group, and Moschino in particular, 2023 has been a rather complicated year. The label, which accounts for 76% of the company’s total revenues, saw its sales fall from €273.3 million in 2022 to €240.8 million a year later (-11.3% at constant exchange rates). At the start of the year, Jeremy Scott, who had been creative director for ten years, left, just as the company was celebrating its fortieth anniversary. His successor, Davide Renne, died in November. He was replaced in early January by Argentine designer Adrian Appiolaza. At the same time, Aeffe merged its Moschino and Aeffe Retail subsidiaries by incorporating them at 100%.

The company was also affected by an unstable economic and political climate. In Italy, its main market accounting for 42% of total sales, Aeffe saw its sales fall by 7.3% to €134 million. In Europe, which accounts for 31% of its total revenues, sales fell by 16.3% to 98.6 million, while in the United States they plunged by 20% to 19.3 million. Only in Asia did sales increase by 4.9%, to €66.7 million.

“The results we are presenting today, which were expected but not positive, are clearly the fruit of these transformations and of the heavy investments made in recent years, which will have positive effects from 2024 onwards,” concludes Massimo Ferretti.