Calida Group reports H1 loss, sales down 14.6 percent

The Calida Group said that it looks back on a challenging first six months of 2020 since business was seriously impacted from March onwards by the coronavirus-related closures of all bricks-and-mortar shops and points of sale at important retail partners in Switzerland, Germany and France. While online business grew by 59.2 percent and the 22.5 percent share of sales, on the whole, adjusted for exchange rate effects sales declined in the first six months by 14.6 percent to 146.2 million Swiss francs (159.3 million dollars), while EBIT amounted to an adjusted operating loss of 4.4. million Swiss francs compared to operating profit of 6.5 million Swiss francs and an adjusted EBITDA of negative 0.6 million Swiss francs against 10.7 million Swiss francs in the first half of 2019, due to the decline in revenue caused by the pandemic.

Commenting on the first half trading, Reiner Pichler, CEO of the Calida Group, said in a statement: “After a good start to the year, we were badly hit by the effects of Covid-19. Thanks to our strong and rapidly growing position in e-commerce and the effective strategic measures put in place, we were able to limit the impact of the lockdown to a significant extent. We will continue to further drive digitisation across all channels.”

Review of Calida Group’s brands’ first half performance

In the reporting period, at 54 million Swiss francs (58.8 million dollars), adjusted for exchange rates effects Calida’s revenue fell by 11.3 percent, while online sales rose by 63.2 percent. Lingerie brand Aubade saw an increase in online revenue of 24.6 percent, however, the strong performance of the online business was not able to compensate for the decline in revenue at bricks-and-mortar retailers, which were down 20.6 percent to 21.9 million euros (25.7 million dollars).

The company further said that after the sale of the Eider brand, Millet Mountain Group generated revenue of 27.3 million euros (32 million dollars), which adjusted for exchange rate effects were down 33.8 percent. Lafuna Mobilier revenue increased by 3.4 percent to 32.1 million euros (37.6 million dollars), whereby online revenue saw an increase of 177.3 percent.

The surf and lifestyle brand Oxbow, which had been displayed below-average levels of profitability, was sold in the reporting period.

Picture:Calida website