CALIDA Holding AG

Operational excellence as new strategic focus – EBIT margin of 10% as target by 2026 – focus online business on Group brands – impairment at COSABELLA - Seite 2

 

New strategic thrust: operational excellence

In the future, the CALIDA GROUP will focus on sustainably improving the profitability of the CALIDA, AUBADE and LAFUMA MOBILIER brands and on exploiting the growth potential of COSABELLA. By concentrating the expertise of CALIDA GROUP DGTL on CALIDA and AUBADE, the digital distribution channels can be expanded in a targeted manner and the online business intensified. The establishment of operational platforms at the Group level is no longer necessary, but the transfer of know-how between the brands is further promoted.

 

 

Focusing online business on the Group's own brands

Due to the announced organizational optimizations at CALIDA GROUP DGTL, around 20 jobs will be terminated in the course of the discontinuation of the loss-making multibrand webshop onmyskin.com. In addition, the closure is associated with write-downs on rental agreements and inventories. This will result in total processing costs for onmyskin.com of around CHF 3 million. Various options for the takeover of onmyskin.com by third parties are currently being examined. With this consolidation at CALIDA GROUP DGTL, the aim is to achieve further cost-optimized growth in e-commerce at CALIDA and AUBADE.

The planned divestment of ERLICH TEXTIL is expected in the fourth quarter of 2023, with the necessary value adjustments having already been made in the first half of 2023.

 

Impairments and optimization of COSABELLA’s brand strategy

Sales of the US premium lingerie brand COSABELLA, acquired in spring 2022, remained at the previous year’s level in the first half of the year, as reported, thanks to the strong online business. Business development continues to lag significantly behind the original business case. The more cautious reassessment of the business potential led to an adjustment of the targets and thus to impairments (including goodwill and brand) of CHF 33-43 million and additional expenses of around CHF 6 million, which will be charged in 2023. The optimization of the brand strategy and the consistent integration of COSABELLA is now being driven forward. This is carried out in close cooperation with Silvia Campello, who has replaced Guido Campello as General Manager as of 31 August 2023. Silvia Campello has been with COSABELLA since 1998, most recently as Head of Finance and Operations.