Titanium Media Note: This article comes from the WeChat public account East Forty Capital (ID: DSSTCAPITAL).
ESprit, the originator of a generation, is waiting for the “rescue” of international private equity.
ESPRIT’s parent company “Sijie Global” recently issued an announcement that they received the oral investment intention of an international private equity group with good past performance and discussed the company’s strategy.He benefits in growth and tries to explore and improve European business together.
However, which international private equity boss wants to activate the ESprit brand, it has not yet disclosed it.
ESPRIT began in 1968 and once became popular all over the world. It can be regarded as the previous generation of fast -fashion brands such as Uniqlo and ZARA. It became the memory of the 80s with brands such as Benny Road and Zhenvis.However, the brand has embarked on a downhill road since 2019 and retreated from China to focus on the European market.
In fact, the European market is not optimistic.In March of this year, Sijie Global’s Swiss Affiliated Corporation applied for bankruptcy; in April, the subsidiary “BEBR”, which was engaged in retail distribution clothing and accessories in Belgium, also submitted an application for bankruptcy.The company further explained that “the capital flow is tight and the incomplete debt is not dismissed, and the application for bankruptcy meets the group’s best interests.”
Tracing back for decades, these two news is just the end of ESprit’s defeat for many years.
Under the offensive of a new generation of brand such as Uniqlo, ZARA, UR, few people have remembered the ESprit brand, but the founders of ESPRIT will not be unfamiliar, that is, the “northern down jacket” that has been sold in the past two years.The founder Douglas Tompkins (Douglas Thompkins).
In 1968, he and his ex -wife Susie Russell founded ESPRIT, giving him the constraints of the breakthrough era, and pursuing the avant -garde brand concept of freedom, vitality and youth.ESPRIT has an impactful color combination, trying to break consumers’ awareness of traditional clothing.Due to the novel design and good publicity, ESPRIT has gradually become one of the US tide brands.
However, there are other people who introduced ESPRIT into the key figures of China.
Xing Liyi started as the purchase agent of ESPRIT and introduced it to China.In 1989, the founder of Esprit divorced, and Thompkins began to sell its shares.The following year, Xing Liyi set up Sijie Global and continued to invest.In 1993, Sijie Global Packaging the Asia -Pacific business was listed on Hong Kong stocks, and then began to acquire ESPRIT. By 2002, Xing Liyi had the right of ESPRIT trademarks.
ESPRIT has entered China since 1981, and has created sales myths in 15 years. Sales have risen all the way and have never stopped.At that time, major shopping malls threw olive branches to ESPRIT, invited to settle in, and even continued to reduce deductive points.Under the launch of Lin Qingxia, superstars such as Leslie Cheung, Anita Mui, and Lin Yilian all platforms for him, consumers swarmed to the door.
At the most glorious time, the ESPRIT brand has about 500 direct -operated stores and more than 2,100 special business stores worldwide, and its business network spreads throughout Asia, Europe, the Americas and Europe.The parent company Sijie Global also ushered in the peak of performance. It is a famous blue -chip stock in the Hong Kong stock market, which is hot.
In 2007, the global market value of Sijie reached its peak, reaching HK $ 123.5/share at the highest, and the total market value was as high as HK $ 171.5 billion.
At its peak, the legendary character that brought the ESprit brand to the glory staged a classic drama with a high cash out of the field.
Beginning in 2006, Xing Liyi began to reduce the company’s shares.In the same year, he also resigned from the post of chairman and chief executive officer of Sijie Global Board of Directors.Since then, after ten times of reduction, the total cash withdrawal is as high as HK $ 23.328 billion.
In 2018, Xing Liyu completed all the reduction of holdings.One year later, Xing Liyu ranked 712th in the Hurun Global Rich List for 22.5 billion yuan, setting a new high.But starting from 2019, ESPRIT has also embarked on the downhill road of defeat.
First, we ushered in the first decline.In 2019, ESPRIT broke the myth of 15 consecutive years, and the turnover and net profit fell by 7.4%and 27.4%, respectively. The Asia -Pacific market was the largest market in it, a year -on -year decrease of 26.6%.
Then withdraw from China.According to public information, during May 2020, ESPRIT, a brand of Sijie Global, issued an announcement on the official website and Tmall flagship store, saying that it was fully closed on May 31 of that year.At the same time, it has also announced the termination of its business in Mainland China and closed all 56 retail shops in Asia outside China.
During this period, the company did not have no reform.In 2012, Sijie Global dug Ma Haosi, the parent company of ZARA, as CEO, trying to “ZARA”, and invited Korean star Song Huiqiao to be the spokesperson for the new season.
In 2019, Sijie Global and Musan Group announced that they will set up a joint venture to try to improve ESprit.However, the cooperation eventually stopped due to the failure.Subsequently, the epidemic was three years old, and ESPRIT was even more difficult to show.
From the perspective of financial report data, the company’s loss has become the norm.Sijie Global lost 2.144 billion Hong Kong dollars in 2019, lost 3.992 billion Hong Kong dollars in 2020, and earned 381 million Hong Kong dollars in 2021. In 2022, it lost 664 million Hong Kong dollars.
In March of this year, Sijie Global released the 2023 performance report.Data show that its annual revenue is about 5.912 billion Hong Kong dollars, a decrease of about 16.3%year -on -year, with a loss of about HK $ 2.339 billion. The loss of about HK $ 664 million in the same period last year was about HK $ 664 million.In the ESPRIT market, Europe accounts for about 70%of the entire fiscal revenue.
The prospectus explained that the main reason for losses was due to the poor economic environment in the European market, high inflation pressure caused by high interest rates, and the continuous tension of geopolitical situations around the world, and the high energy costs continued to affect consumers’ purchasing power.In this context, ESPRIT’s subsidiary Bebr finally appears to be funded.
At the same time, Sijie Global has also reduced to “fairy stocks”.As of April 17, Sijie’s global stock price was only 0.2 Hong Kong dollars per share, with a total market value of only 589 million Hong Kong dollars.
As we all know, in the past two decades, China has been a huge market that cannot be ignored.When ESPRIT announced his withdrawal from the Chinese market in 2020, “it is not completely left, but it will return in a better state after temporarily adjusting.”
Although ESprit has not opened offline stores in China so far.But in fact, Sijie Global has been seeking recovery in the Chinese market.
For example, in August 2022, Sijie Global set up a limited experience hall in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, and officially returned to the Hong Kong retail market in China.In the 2023 financial report, Sijie Global also mentioned that teams in the Asian and European markets will continue to work hard to return ESprit to its original, high -end and global recognized brand positioning.
If you want to return to the battlefield, the past strategy must be changed.In the final analysis, ESPIRT’s defeat is caused by insufficient understanding of consumers’ needs and changes, and its brands, products, and supply chains are aging.
In terms of products, ESPIRT has not introduced new and product updates.In terms of brand, during ESPIRT withdrawing from China, Zara, Uniqlo, H & M and other fast fashion giants have eaten its market. In the past two years, domestic fast fashion brands such as UR, Hot Wind, MJSTYLE, and MO & CO have also risen rapidly.The new generation of consumption is the post -90s post -90s post -00s even do not even know the existence of ESPIRT.
In the supply chain, the reason why the later show Zara can expand rapidly in the short term, and more than half of its clothing is produced by itself.Send the store, all links can be completed within a few weeks.This is not available to ESprit.
Although Zara recently got involved in the closed store storm and stores have decreased sharply, the profitability is increasing.The revenue of fiscal and fiscal 2019 in 2018 and 2019 were 18 billion euros and 19.6 billion euros. In 2020, the epidemic was a short -term decline, and then increased year by year. In fiscal 2023, it reached 26.05 billion euros (over 200 billion yuan).Obviously, Zara has stood firm.
