Dutch budget ready-to-wear retailer C&A is considering cutting more than 300 jobs and closing 24 branches in France in order to “improve competitiveness,” the retailer told the AFP agency on Friday.
A C&A store in France – C&A
C&A’s restructuring effort, not the first it has undertaken in France, is designed to “ensure the future of the brand within a French apparel market that is constantly deteriorating, and on which C&A France has been experiencing difficulties despite previous interventions,” said C&A.
The retailer currently operates 100 stores in France, where it has 1,500 employees, to whom the restructuring plan was disclosed on March 14.
“C&A is introducing job protection plans in the same way it introduces end-of-season-sales,” said the CGT union in a statement, underlining this would be the “eighth such plan,” and that 800 jobs had already been lost in recent years.
The 24 stores whose closure is envisaged are experiencing “structural difficulties,” and all 57 C&A corners at other French retailers are set to suffer the same fate, “since [C&A] has been unable to renew its commercial partnerships with Intermarché, Carrefour and Auchan,” said the Dutch retailer.
The same source said that, given product volumes in France are expected to decrease, C&A will also downsize its logistics hub in the Paris region.
“In total, the proposed plan… would result in a maximum of 324 redundancies,” said C&A.
In the “coming weeks,” C&A added, “a very comprehensive employee support scheme will be negotiated” with union representatives, including redeployment opportunities and related measures.
The plan “is part of C&A’s Europe-wide strategy aimed at ensuring the company will continue to do business,” by better meeting consumer needs and becoming profitable again, emphasised the 184-year-old retailer’s management.
In 1841, the brothers Clemens and August Brenninkmeijer set up a linen and cotton business called C&A Brenninkmeijer in Sneek, the Netherlands. The company began to specialise in ready-to-wear in 1890, and opened its 1,000th store in 2006.
C&A currently sells low-cost women’s, men’s and children’s apparel through 1,300 branches in 17 European countries, and employs 25,000 people.
American fashion brand Rag & Bone on Monday opened its dedicated Australian e-commerce site, as the New York-based company looks to make further inroads in the southern hemisphere market.
Rag & Bone
The new online store will offer the full range of Rag & Bone’s men’s and women’s designs to the Australian online shopper, providing e-commerce visitors with an enhanced personalised shopping experience, easy navigation, secure payment options, and improved delivery with the opening of a new local warehouse in Australia.
“We are continually expanding Rag & Bone’s presence in Australia and am thrilled to include the roll-out of Rag & Bone e-commerce channel to the Australian market which gives us an opportunity to connect with our fans in a more meaningful way, delivering a personalised seamless end-to-end shopping experience,” said Paul Smith, managing director of Signal Brands Australia, the newly formed local distributor of Rag & Bone in Australia.
The e-commerce debut in Australia comes just months after Rag & Bone opened a new store in Sydney’s upscale Double Bay precinct in December last year.
Located at 31-33 Knox Street, the new store embodies Rag & Bone’s urban aesthetic, yet approachable, atmosphere, reflecting Double Bay’s chic sophisticated vibe. It houses a curated selection of the brand’s menswear and womenswear collections, including jackets, denim, outerwear, accessories, and footwear.
In early 2024, Guess Inc. and global brand management firm WHP Global announced a definitive agreement to acquire Rag & Bone.
As part of the acquisition, Guess took the reins of Rag & Bone’s operational assets, while jointly owning its intellectual property with WHP Global.
Australian Fashion Week (AFW) has announced its 2025 edition will take place in Sydney from May 12-16 at Carriageworks and other locations around the major Australian capital.
Under new management by the Australian Fashion Council (AFC) — after former event management IMG pulled its support back in November — the 2025 AFW edition will also have a new title sponsor, Shark Beauty, owned by U.S. giant, Shark Ninja.
“Shark Beauty is thrilled to celebrate the incredible creativity and innovation of Australian designers. Our commitment to empowering individuals to be the best version of themselves aligns perfectly with the transformative energy of fashion,” said Aby Shukla, SharkNinja, managing Director ANZ.
“We are excited to support this platform that showcases bold visions and exceptional talent from across the country, and we look forward to being a part of this exciting chapter in the Australian fashion industry.”
The nation’s leading fashion event will host runway shows from some 30 designers including Aje, Alix Higgins, Bassike, Beare Park, Bianca Spender, Boteh, Buluuy Mirrii, Carla Zampatti, Farage, Gary Bigeni, Haluminous, Hansen & Gretel, Jordan Gogos, Joseph & James, Karla Spetic, Ksubi, Lee Mathews, Liandra, Macgraw, Mariam Seddiq, Miimi + Jiinda, Nagnata, Ngali, Nicol + Ford, Permanent Vacation, Romance Was Born and Sir. the label, and 1800 Psycho, as well as a new The Frontier Group Show made up of Amy Lawrance, Courtney Zheng, Common Hours, Esse, Matin, Paris Georgia, and Wynn Hamlyn.
In addition to Shark Beauty, AFW has also a secured financial backing from the New South Wales government’s tourism and major events agency, Destination NSW.
“We are thrilled to come together to celebrate the designers participating in AFC Australian Fashion Week 2025. The schedule has been carefully curated to showcase the very best that Australian fashion has to offer. Our exceptional talent is in high demand both locally and abroad, highlighting the criticality of this dedicated global platform for them to shine” said Kellie Hush, CEO AFC Australian Fashion Week.
It’s been a tough 18 months for Australian fashion, with several mainstay brands and retailers announcing their closure. In September, Australian fashion darling Dion Lee announced its closure after the luxury brand failed to attract a buyer, three months after entering voluntary administration, with major investor Cue withdrawing its stake in the business.
That followed by Australian luxury multi-brand retailer Harrolds, which in October slipped into liquidation, owing over AUD$16 million in liabilities to a plethora of luxury brands.
Simon Wolfson, chief executive officer of Next Plc, on Thursday announced pretax profit of £1 billion ($1.3 billion) for the first time in the retailer’s history. It’s a level of earnings few British store chains reach. For some that have, it has been the prelude to a period of disappointment. But Next can escape the curse of the £1 billion profit retailer.
Next
Next’s biggest rival Marks & Spencer Group Plc is perhaps best known for suffering from this affliction. The high street stalwart hit the magic number in 1997 and 1998, when it was enjoying a surge in fashion sales, which then accounted for the bulk of its revenue and was very profitable. But to reach that target, M&S invested more in its bodysuits and blazers than in equally stylish stores. Customers eventually noticed. By 1999, after a damaging succession battle, profit had halved.
M&S topped £1 billion of pretax profit again in 2008, after coming close in 2007, when then CEO Stuart Rose once more revived its fashion, with eye-catching advertising led by 1960s fashion icon Twiggy. By then, food had become a much bigger part of the business, accounting for about 50% of sales. Brits were snapping up its indulgent treats, thanks in part to its “This is not just food….” campaign. But the milestone coincided with the global financial crisis, and profit went backwards once more.
It’s hard to see Next suffering from similar self-inflicted wounds. Wolfson is unlikely to sacrifice future investment in order to maintain the £1 billion level or become more profligate in his spending.
“If a business carries on growing its profits, it’s going to have to pass that threshold at some point,” he told me. “Nobody’s pension is paid by companies achieving an absolute level of profit.” What mattered to investors instead, he added, was the annual expansion in earnings per share, which had increased to 636 pence from 22 pence over the last 30 years.
The Next CEO also warned against thinking that a business of its size could shoulder excessive regulation and taxation. Although it upgraded its forecast for profit in the year to January 2026 by £20 million to £1.07 billion, sending the shares up as much as 11%, Wolfson said that tax increases next month could hurt employment and consumer confidence.
Next can’t escape the broader consumer backdrop. But it does have some levers to pull.
A key part of the company’s resilience has come from building its historic postal catalogue into a muscular online business, which accounts for over 50% of UK sales. Wolfson is now looking to replicate this success internationally. Expanding overseas has been distracting for some British retailers — including M&S — but Next will avoid opening its own stores outside of the UK. Instead it’s selling online in markets close to home either through its own website or other platforms, such as Zalando SE, with which it will work more closely. Further afield, it will sell Next products through retailers such as US department store chain Nordstrom Inc.
Then there are opportunities with brands outside of core Next, such as Label, which sells third-party names. This includes Seasons, which offers fashion from designers such as Joseph, Ganni and Rixo, to meet a desire among customers to buy fewer, better-quality items.
Online luxury has been decimated by the collapse of Matches Fashion and the struggles of Farfetch Ltd. over the past 18 months. That creates opportunities for players like Next that have the warehouse and logistical capabilities to serve more premium customers. Another way to enhance returns is to offer these services to the third-party brands it sells.
“We have lots and lots of acorns,” Wolfson noted. “We don’t tend to talk about them until they are at least saplings.”
Perhaps the biggest risk for Next is not reaching £1 billion of profit, but the day Wolfson decides to hang up his shopkeeper’s apron.
Under his tenure, which began in 2001, shares have generated a total return, including reinvested dividends, of 2,900%, about 13 times that of the FTSE 100 Index. The company is highly cash generative, having a surplus of £669 million last year, enabling it to invest and return money to shareholders, including through £360 million of share buy-backs.
“I’m 57 years old, relatively young as a CEO. My plans are completely unchanged by the fact we have now reached this slightly arbitrary [number]” he said.
Given his diligent management of the business, he’s likely to have built a strong team behind him, even if he remains so closely associated with the company. But CEO succession is an issue that investors will eventually have to contend with.
Next can be the exception to the rule that £1 billion of profit is a harbinger of doom for Britain Plc. It must now take steps to ensure that when the time comes, it departs from another uncomfortable chapter in the retail history books: When a long-serving and successful leader bows out, a period in the wilderness follows.
Entertainment8 years ago