Vivienne Westwood Ltd, the late designer’s UK business, has filed its accounts for 2024 with the company reporting higher revenue and rising profits as well as a much higher dividend payment.
Revenue during the period increased from £133.22 million to reach £155.09 million. That’s a 16.4% increase but it came as retail store sales fell by 3.6% and online sales fell by 53.1%. This was mainly due to the restructuring of e-commerce, which is now split with its sister company in Italy.
The decision for the split came about in wake of Brexit and while the UK company is ultimately “responsible for the e-commerce project in its entirety”, it only now actually manages the UK market. From September 2023 the rest of the world has been managed and distributed by Vivienne Westwood SRL. This resolves and eliminates issues and delays with customs and provides a better and faster service to its customers.
Meanwhile, wholesale sales increased by 58.2% for the company.
The firm said margins remained under pressure due to the nature of wider retail conditions as well as other external factors, but it has been focusing on alleviating this pressure by reviewing its pricing in order to improve its gross profit margins.
That process can be seen by the fact that gross profit at the company rose from £77.8 million to almost £98 million during the year and although costs were higher, operating profit jumped from just under £44.2 million to a little over £59 million. Profit before tax was a similar figure and although the amount of tax the business paid increased by almost 50% the final profit for the year jumped from £33.6 million to £44.3 million.
The company said the brand continued to remain attractive to its wide customer base and sales were consistent, with the focus remaining on improving its existing stores and “clarifying the position of the Vivienne Westwood brand” by focusing the offer through a streamlining of the portfolio of lines.
The group still has major ambitions to establish a stronger presence in relatively new markets for it such as China and the US, as well as increasing market share in Europe (in particular France, Italy and Germany) and Asia.
The accounts also showed that the company paid a dividend of £35 million for the year, much higher than the £10 million paid out in 2023.
