In an interview to the Wall Street Journal last November, François Pinault – PPR’s CEO – re-asserted his will to strengthen the group’s luxury brands by selling La Fnac and Conforama “the sooner the better”.
PPR is a French multinational holding company specializing in retail shops and luxury brands.
The group’s main activity is the retailing business thanks to La Fnac which is the leader of cultural and technological products in southern European countries and Conforama, which is a major player in European home furnishings. Moreover the company owns Redcats Group, a B-to-C (business to consumer) home shopping market in fashion and home decoration.
PPR is also the proud owner of the Gucci Group, one of the luxury goods industry leading groups with such brands asGucci, Bottega Veneta, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Boucheron, Sergio Rossi, Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney.
François-Henri Pinault is now to proceed with the strategy he started in 2005 when he was named CEO of the family empire.
Indeed, his wish from the beginning was to create a powerful fashion group. To do so François-Henri Pinault strengthened the group’s fashion and luxury activity: he sold edgy Parisian department store Le Pintemps in 2006 and YSL beauty in 2008 to L’Oréal. Besides he bought Puma in 2007 and formed a strategic partnership with Sowind Group, a Swiss holding company that includes luxury watch firms Girard-Perregaux and JeanRichard, as well as the Sowind Manufacture, which produces movements.
Now PPR wants to sell La Fnac and Conforama in order to concentrate more on Gucci and Puma. The company is also looking at possible acquisitions, probably in watchmaking.
