Within A Day, The Market Value Shrank By HK $4 Billion 100 Million &Nbsp; What Happened To ESPRIT?

ESPRIT, the famous fashion brand, has seen a decline in profits for 3 consecutive years.

According to the latest financial report, as of June 2011, ESPRIT net profit fell from HK $4 billion 230 million to HK $79 million in the previous year, reaching 98%, and the share price also shrank by HK $4 billion 100 million in one day.

What has happened to this brand, once a fashion enlightenment for Chinese consumers?

Although ESPRIT was founded by SusieTompkins and DougTompkins in San Francisco, USA in 1968, it is a Chinese who really makes it globalized and become an international brand. Xing Liyuan, his second wife, is Brigitte Lin, a famous actress in Hongkong.

To a certain extent, Xing Li Yuan can be regarded as the most influential Chinese garment industry in the world.

In 1972, Xing Liyuan became an agent of ESPRIT. He founded the Esprit Far East Limited, which was mainly responsible for ESPRIT Asia's business. He listed the business and assets on the Hongkong stock exchange in 1993 (the name ESPRITAsiaHoldingsLtd.). After that, the Far East purchased ESPRIT's brand management and business in Australia and Europe, and bought 63% of ESPRIT's US equity in 1996.

In 1998, ESPRITAsiaHoldingsLtd. was listed on the London Stock Exchange.

In 1997, the world experienced a more serious financial crisis in the last century. Many companies slowed down the pace of expansion. However, the global expansion of the global trend was at a low cost.

In 1997, the Esprit Far East Limited acquired the ESPRIT private business held by WTL, which was renamed "the Global Holdings Limited".

In the second year, Si Jie global joint venture with Huarun set up Huarun Huarun Industrial Co., Ltd. to further expand its business in mainland China.

In 2002, Si Jie global bought the remaining shares of ESPRIT, and ESPRIT became the brand of the global unified management and operation. Xing Li Yuan shares 42%, becoming the largest shareholder of 00330.HK. With the growth of the global capital, Xing Liyuan also ranks among the world's 500 richest.

In the glorious era, ESPRIT has a market value of 170 billion yuan, and its stores all over the world, most of which are distributed in Europe, the United States and other mainstream markets.

Unlike domestic enterprises that rely on low-cost foundry to enter the world, ESPRIT has become the only brand that has been controlled by the Chinese and has global influence.

However, since 2006, Xing Liyuan has resigned from the chairman of the board of directors of Si Jie global group and the position of CEO, and has continuously reduced the shares of Si Jie world.

According to statistics, he reduced shares by more than 10 times, and completely sold off his stocks in 2010, totaling about HK $23 billion 328 million.

In direct proportion to the sell-off of Xing Liyuan's stock, after the withdrawal of Xingli yuan's global management, the share price of SW global is almost the same. Its share price has dropped from HK $133 in 2007 to HK $11 today, and its market value has also shrunk from HK $170 billion to less than HK $16 billion.

We can not verify Xing Liyuan's reasons for selling ESPRIT, but one thing, in 2006, that is, when Xing Liyuan began to cash in, the fast fashion enterprise was rising rapidly with the sudden thunder. Even the international clothing giant GAP began to feel the influence of the brand ZARA from Spain.

In 2007, the sales in Europe accounted for 86% of its global business. Until 2010, it accounted for more than 83% of the total.

ESPRIT has focused on the European market, but it has not changed with the times, and has changed with the change of consumers in the market.

After 2000, ZARA, H&M, C&A and other fast fashion brands are popular. ESPRIT's business models and styles are hard to conceal.

In China, ESPRIT sales accounted for only 11% of its global sales until 2011.

The impact of the Chinese market on the global garment industry is self-evident. As ZARA and UNIQLO speed up the pace of opening stores, the development of ESPRIT is still unhurried.

In China, ESPRIT has neither achieved high profit driven growth like luxury goods like LV or PRADA, nor won scale like ZARA or UNIQLO.

After Xing Liyuan's resignation, the head of ESPRIT and the management were mostly expatriates, who lacked clear strategic planning in China.

Secondly, ESPRIT positioning bias and lack of fashion sense.

Even in the past, ESPRIT's positioning was still just a middle class brand, and it was far from forming the traditional and unique style of luxury brands.

Compared with the fast fashion brand, its design is too single. It can neither lead the fashion trend nor meet the needs and tastes of consumers in different regions of the market.

At the same time, in recent years, Europe is entering an aging society. In China, 80 is a new generation with great spending power. ESPRIT is embarrassed to be unable to meet the needs of any one of the two markets.

A few years ago, I judged the future market of China as a gourd society. Now this trend is becoming more and more obvious.

Consumers tend to spend more money on important products such as handbags and shoes. For some products that are not so concerned, such as T-shirts, there is a tendency to lower consumption.

In this case, luxury goods benefited from the appreciation of the renminbi and the strong purchasing power of Chinese customers, and their performance has been rising. Under the influence of the trend, ZARA, UNIQLO, GAP, such a low priced civilian fashion, have cut a larger consumer group.

When the consumer structure changed from the former Pyramid shape to the gourd shape, ESPRIT's positioning is just the finest gourd waist, and the lack of growth is also the inevitable result.

Finally, the ESPRIT channel mode is outmoded, not fast nor big.

From the perspective of channel, today, ESPRIT's channel mode is still single, mainly retail and wholesale, while direct retailing relies mostly on shopping malls. Although there are a large number of large flagship stores, the intersection of various retail formats brings high management costs and poor remanufacturing.

ESPRIT, which has the advantage of first hand, is dragged down by many formats and multi brand operation modes. It shows that in the retail store, it can not achieve the "big store mode" of 1000 square meters, and it can not achieve the "fast fashion" requirement in the supply chain efficiency.

ZARA, UNIQLO, GAP and so on are similar in style, mode and area. They can be replicated better, and the efficiency of the global supply chain system is high.

All of these have led to the decline of Si Jie today. However, the Sijie global, which has decades of history, is still rich. If we can make the strategy clearer and deeper in China, I believe there is still a chance for pformation.