Global luxury giant Richemont reported its UK results earlier this month and now one of its brands, Dunhill (actually, Alfred Dunhill Ltd) has done likewise and what did we find? Ongoing losses for the year to the end of March.
Dunhill
It’s worth pointing out that individual reports such as those filed for an owned company headquartered separately from its parent organisation don’t always tell the full picture for a brand that operates around the world. But with that caveat in mind, here are the figures.
The company reported revenue of £38.6 million, down from £43.8 million in the previous year. And the operating loss was bigger at £59.3 million compared to £47.1 million. The net loss for the financial year was £45.2 million, also a bigger deficit than the net loss of almost £38.5 million 12 months earlier.
While being owned by Richemont, the UK-registered company noted that it’s responsible for the overall maintenance of the brand including determining its global marketing brief and the design of its products.
It said that during the year it received an additional investment of £130 million by way of a share issue to its immediate holding company Richemont Holdings (UK) Ltd. It noted this was to “further invest and develop the Alfred Dunhill brand”.
Frustratingly, there wasn’t much more detail given in the report but it did say that the strategy of the company is to continue to “reinforce the positioning of Dunhill as a leading luxury brand for men”.
And other developments show that it’s been just doing that in the year in question and in the months since that year finished.
Back in September, it announced Matthew Ives as its new CEO. He’s a Dunhill veteran but has more recently been SVP chief commercial officer of a non-Richemont business, De Beers London.
He replaced Andrew Holmes, Dunhill COO and CFO, who’d been interim CEO since the beginning of last year. Previous Dunhill chief Laurent Malecaze had been moved to CEO’s chair at Richemont’s Chloé brand.
Dunhill may have been loss-making but it’s been receiving plenty of praise for its recent collections. In June, Harrods’ fashion buying director Simon Longland called it out as one of the strongest collections in that month’s men’s fashion month.
In fact, it has been widely praised since Simon Holloway took the design helm in spring 2023.
