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LVMH Names Anne de Vergeron Repossi CEO

The LVMH executive led the group’s purchase of an initial stake in the jewelry house in 2015.

PARIS — LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton has named Anne de Vergeron chief executive officer of Repossi, tapping a board member of the Place Vendôme jeweler with a strong background in finance to steer it into the future.

Formerly an investment banker, de Vergeron worked at UBS for 16 years before joining LVMH in business development at the group level, serving as director of the activity. She led LVMH’s acquisition of an initial, minority stake in Repossi in 2015 and has served as a board member since the transaction. The executive, who graduated from French business school ESCP, was also involved in the group’s purchase of Maison Francis Kurkdjian, and served on the board of the high-end perfurmer.

“Honestly, it’s extremely natural as a transition, if you love the products and the brands and you like storytelling, I would say it’s extremely natural,” said de Vergeron, when asked about the move from finance to a luxury group and now, taking up the reins of a high-end label herself. As a board member, the executive has gained insight into the creation side of the jewelry house, and knows the house’s creative director, Gaia Repossi, well.

“I have a great admiration and respect for Gaia’s work but also her bold vision and her eye, and we work very well together,” she said.

Speaking on a Zoom call, she noted the challenge of balancing her personal view on the jewelry designer’s work while also wanting the designer to fully express herself.

“It’s a lot of dialogue, I would say, a lot of influence, a lot of understanding, a lot of admiration, and sometimes you have to tell her ‘Listen, maybe you should do it another way,’” said de Vergeron, noting she has guided the designer in the codes of corporate culture.

While the process involves respecting creation, sometimes it’s about making sure that if a diamond is on a ring, that it is visible, and not hidden, she observed.

“We’re one of the very few houses with a real creative director in jewelry — she’s Gaia Repossi, she’s got her name on the front of the door,” she said, noting that Repossi is the the house’s third generation of designers.

Stressing the designer’s influence on the jewelry world, de Vergeron ticked off some examples, including suspended diamonds and wearing rings close to fingertips.

“Ear cuffs — every brand on the market is doing ear cuffs,” she said, pointing out other Place Vendôme jewelers that have done the same.

“She has been creating a lot of codes in jewelry and it’s true, lots of brands are looking at what she’s doing and try to replicate it,” added de Vergeron.

Noting Gaia Repossi’s close ties with the art world, de Vergeron said the label plans to do more artistic collaborations. The designer recently teamed with Flavin Judd of the Donald Judd Foundation for the refurbishment of the label’s historic store in Monaco. Judd outfitted the store in raw wood, using texture, colors and geometry to delineate separate spaces — an altogether different approach to modernity than the label’s futuristic Place Vendôme flagship, designed by Rem Koolhaas, with shiny, metallic surfaces.

The brand supported the current Donald Judd retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, its first major arts sponsorship.

“Artistic dialogue is the way to establish this already existing relationship that Gaia has been building with different artists. We just want to formalize something that already exists and it’s really true to the work of Gaia,” said de Vergeron, hinting at further partnerships with the art world in the near future.

Asked what she sees as the biggest challenges for the discrete, avant-garde jewelry house with nearly 65 years of history, she said they hope to strike the right balance.

“Our goal is to find the right balance by expanding the brand identity and maintaining a coherent message on who we are, what we stand for, where we come from while continuing our artistic dialogues,” she said.

“It really belongs to Place Vendôme,” added the executive, noting that high jewelry is the label’s starting point, and that every piece is hand crafted.

As for distribution, the label is launching e-commerce early next year, initially in Europe, followed by a global rollout.

The label has just released its new collection of Berbère Chromatic rings, which come in wide bands of pink gold and lacquer — in a nude pink, red and a dark navy.

Warburg Pincus and TowerBrook offer 35p a share in non-binding proposal for debt-laden company

The AA’s board has told two private equity groups it would be willing to accept a proposed 35p-a-share offer for the heavily indebted roadside recovery group, it said in a statement on Monday.

The group is in last-ditch talks with Warburg Pincus and TowerBrook Capital Partners over the terms of a possible deal, ahead of a Tuesday deadline set by the UK’s Takeover Panel.

Under the proposed deal, which is not binding and may not result in a formal offer being made, the private equity groups would pay only slightly more than the company’s Friday closing price of 33p a share and would invest about £380m to cut the company’s debt burden by refinancing bonds that are due for repayment in 2022.

“Having considered carefully the viability of a range of alternative potential debt and equity refinancing options . . . [the AA’s board] has indicated to the consortium that it would be willing to recommend” such an offer, the AA’s statement said. “The company is engaged in advanced discussions with the consortium in relation to the possible offer.”

On Sunday evening two people close to the deal said there was no certainty it would go ahead, with one estimating a 50-50 chance of an agreement being struck by the deadline. “It could still go either way,” another person said. 

The AA has been speaking to potential bidders since the summer, as it seeks to bring in cash ahead of repayment deadlines on a large portion of its £2.6bn debt. 

An offer pitched only slightly above the AA’s 33p-a-share price stands to disappoint some AA shareholders, who have previously demanded a higher bid. 

Drew Dickson, the founder of Albert Bridge, the AA’s largest shareholder, told the Financial Times in August that an offer of £200m for the company’s equity would be a “somewhat opportunistic” move by private equity companies. An offer at the current share price would value the company’s equity only slightly higher, at £209m.

However, the bidders argue that their approach amounts to a rescue deal, a person close to the matter said on Sunday. About £913m of its debt falls due for repayment in the next two years. It made £107m in pre-tax profits in the year to January 31.

The deal would include the refinancing of £541m in bonds maturing in July 2022, and a further £372m in bonds maturing in January 2022, the AA’s statement said.

The private equity groups’ proposal would allow some AA shareholders to keep a stake in the company once it is taken private, the AA added. 

The AA, known for its yellow breakdown vans, is weighed down by debt, a legacy of previous private equity ownership. Its interest payments alone in the year to January totalled £128m, more than half of its market value.

One main sticking point in the talks has been the announcement by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority in September of a new ban on charging existing insurance customers more than new clients for home and motor cover. That would hit the AA’s insurance business, which it operates alongside its roadside recovery operations. 

The AA’s shares were trading at 25p the day before the company announced in August that it was in talks with buyout groups.

Warburg Pincus and TowerBrook declined to comment. 

China Construction Bank pulls sale of up to $3 billion in short-term debt in an offshore financial center in Malaysia

One of China’s largest banks halted the planned debut of a digital bond on an exchange outside the country, shortly before the security was scheduled to begin trading on Nov. 13.

China Construction Bank Corp. CICHY -0.89% decided not to proceed with a sale of up to $3 billion in short-term debt in Labuan, an offshore financial center in Malaysia, after the bank’s role in the deal and the way investors could trade the securities came under scrutiny in China.

The blockchain-based bond, the first of its kind, was supposed to be listed on the Fusang Exchange, a bourse for digital securities. The exchange said earlier this month that large and small investors could buy the bond for as little as $100 by paying the exchange cash or bitcoin.

Under the earlier plan, funds raised from the bond sale, which would all be in U.S. dollars, would be deposited at the Labuan branch of China Construction Bank. Bondholders would earn annualized interest of Libor plus 50 basis points, or about 0.75%, significantly above most short-term rates on bank deposits.

The Fusang exchange said Monday that it was notified by a unit of China Construction Bank that the listing plan has been withdrawn. A branch of the Chinese state-owned bank was the lead arranger and listing sponsor of the bond, which would have been issued by a special-purpose vehicle.

The planned bond sale, which was reported earlier this month, created some controversy in China because of its association with cryptocurrencies.

Three years ago, Chinese authorities banned bitcoin exchanges in the country and fundraising via cryptocurrencies, to curb speculation in the asset class and prevent cryptocurrencies from being used for illegal activities or as a way to move money out of the country.

The price of bitcoin has soared more than 40% over the past month, and recently traded above $18,500, according to CoinDesk.

Before the digital-bond sale was suspended, a representative of China Construction Bank said the bank wasn’t dealing in bitcoin and would be receiving funds only in U.S. dollars. He didn’t respond to a request for comment on Monday.

A prospectus for the bond sale said the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated China Construction Bank’s push into online financial services such as microlending. The bank, which has hundreds of millions of individual and business customers, also listed inclusive finance and financial technology among its strategies.

Henry Chong, Fusang’s chief executive, said that before the deal’s suspension, the exchange saw “overwhelming investor interest and demand” for the bond and had received inquiries from potential bond issuers, including other banks in the region.

“We are frankly disappointed at the outcome, but we know the model works,” Mr. Chong added. Investors who committed funds to the new digital bond will get their money back, the exchange said.

Efficacy ranged from 62% to 90%, depending on dosage

LONDON—The Covid-19 vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca PLC was found to be as much as 90% effective in preventing infections without serious side effects in a large clinical trial in the U.K. and Brazil, the partners said Monday.

Efficacy ranged from 62% to 90% depending on dosage given, AstraZeneca and Oxford said.

AstraZeneca said there were no serious safety events related to the vaccine and it was “well tolerated” across different dosing regimens. Late-stage clinical trials of the vaccine are continuing in the U.S. following a pause that spanned most of September and October.

AstraZeneca said it would seek emergency-use authorization from the World Health Organization to distribute the vaccine in low-income countries and prepare regulatory submissions to authorities in countries that have early-approval programs.

Two other leading vaccines have shown to be more than 90% effective in late-stage trials: one from Pfizer Inc. and Germany’s BioNTech SE, and the other from Moderna Inc. Pfizer and BioNTech late last week said they asked for approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to permit use of their vaccine.

Cost-saving measures, new strategic plan… The market bank, a subsidiary of BPCE, is trying to limit the damage caused by its policy of “shops”.

Floor after floor, the Duo 1 and 2 towers settle into the landscape of eastern Paris. For the time being, it is difficult to know if these buildings intended for the BPCE and Natixis teams form the V of victory, or if their complicated architecture, desired by Jean Nouvel, is the symbol of the contradictions that agitate the group comprising the Banques Populaires , the Savings Banks and their market subsidiary, Natixis, the focus of attention. “Matters to be dealt with have been identified at Natixis,” recognizes Laurent Mignon, Chairman of the BPCE Management Board. Nicolas Namias, CEO of Natixis, and his teams set out to resolve them in a determined and professional manner. " Hurry up. The title has yielded 44% in one year on the stock market, 10 points more than its mutualist rival Crédit Agricole SA (Casa). And if Natixis took the lead in the third quarter, with a net profit of 39 million euros, its profits remain 91% lower than those recorded a year earlier, when Casa limits the slide to 18.5 %.

The H2O spark

Suddenly, Laurent Mignon is deploying great means to "put the bank back on a growth path". Savings measures of 350 million euros by 2024, announcement of an upcoming strategic plan in spring 2021, merger with La Banque Postale in asset management ... the announcements were accumulated on November 5, during the publication of the group's quarterly results. Above all, the market bank finally promises to break ties with H2O, an asset management boutique in which Natixis will sell its 50.01%. Because it was H2O which ignited the powders. The problem came to light in June 2019, when the clients of the London-based company suddenly withdrew some 8 billion euros out of a total of 34 billion outstanding. The reason ? Despite its fluid name, H2O was no longer able to offer its investors the promised liquidity. In August 2020, new alert. This time, it is the Autorité des marchés financiers which bangs its fist on the table and asks for the suspension of certain funds: 10 billion euros are blocked for six weeks, the time to separate the liquid products from those which will not succeed. to find a taker at reduced prices.

For Laurent Mignon, the affair is already almost a thing of the past. He says he is "confident" on the sale of the shares of H2O, which should take place before the end of the year. And he assures us that the lessons have been learned: "There are things to adjust, but we are progressing, we are learning," assures the leader. Natixis has already strengthened its way of working. »A message that he must convey within the group. Because the H2O affair has provoked a lot of grumbling within BPCE. “The networks of popular banks and savings banks are doing the job and have managed to increase their income, even in the crisis, notes a good expert of the group. Their leaders are fed up with being presented with the bills for market banking slippages. “In December 2018, the establishment had already seen its results cut by 260 million euros due to risky investments in Asian markets. “More than a financial impact, the H2O file has consequences in terms of image”, continues a group manager.

“In addition, we can see that the H2O affair has its share in the fall in the Natixis stock market price,” adds a bank employee. However, with employee shareholding which weighs 3% of the company's capital, colleagues all note that a hole is growing in their heritage. "

A "balkanized" group

Another element is fueling the debates. In the middle of August, after the publication of a loss of 57 million euros in the second quarter, Laurent Mignon dismissed without qualms François Riahi, at the head of Natixis for two years. BPCE executives explain today that this enarque, former adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace, lacked entrepreneurship. “Riahi is only a lamp worker, annoys the group's expert on the contrary. He is not responsible for the H2O problems, which were germinating before his arrival. This decision to “resign” sends a very bad message to the teams. "

Successor of Riahi, Nicolas Na-mias, until then head of strategy and finance at Natixis,

“Demonstrates a great spirit of leadership,” points out Laurent Mignon. This enarque and ex-adviser to Jean-Marc Ayrault at Matignon has the difficult task of writing Natixis' rebound strategy which will be revealed next year. "A costume too big for him, yet considers a headhunter. It is only Laurent Mignon's transmission belt. Shortly after these changes, one of Nat's top officials

Mesures d'économies, nouveau plan stratégique… La banque de marché, filiale de BPCE, tente de limiter les dégâts causés par sa politique de « boutiques ».

Etage après étage, les tours Duo 1 et 2 s'installent dans le paysage de l'Est parisien. Pour l'heure, difficile de savoir si ces bâtiments destinés aux équipes de BPCE et de Natixis forment le V de la victoire, ou si leur architecture compliquée, voulue par Jean Nouvel, est le symbole des contradictions qui agitent le groupe regroupant les Banques populaires, les Caisses d'épargne et leur filiale de marché, Natixis, objet de toutes les attentions. « Des sujets à traiter ont été identifiés chez Natixis, reconnaît Laurent Mignon, président du directoire de BPCE. Nicolas Namias, directeur général de Natixis, et ses équipes se sont attachés à les résoudre de manière déterminée et professionnelle. » Le temps presse. Le titre a cédé 44 % en un an en Bourse, soit 10 points de plus que son rival mutualiste Crédit agricole SA (Casa). Et si Natixis a sorti la tête de l'eau au troisième trimestre, avec un résultat net de 39 millions d'euros, ses bénéfices restent inférieurs de 91 % à ceux enregistrés un an plus tôt, quand Casa limite la glissade à 18,5 %.

L'étincelle H2O

Du coup, Laurent Mignon déploie les grands moyens pour « replacer la banque sur une trajectoire de croissance » . Mesures d'économies de 350 millions d'euros à horizon 2024, annonce d'un prochain plan stratégique au printemps 2021, rapprochement avec La Banque postale dans la gestion d'actifs… les annonces se sont accumulées, le 5 novembre, lors de la publication des résultats trimestriels du groupe. Surtout, la banque de marché promet enfin de rompre les amarres avec H2O, une boutique de gestion d'actifs dont Natixis va vendre ses 50,01 %. Car c'est H2O qui a mis le feu aux poudres. Le problème a éclaté au grand jour en juin 2019, lorsque les clients de cette société basée à Londres ont retiré d'un coup quelque 8 milliards d'euros sur un total de 34 milliards d'encours. La raison ? En dépit de son nom de fluide, H2O ne parvenait plus à offrir à ses investisseurs la liquidité promise. En août 2020, nouvelle alerte. Cette fois, c'est l'Autorité des marchés financiers qui tape du poing sur la table et demande la suspension de certains fonds : 10 milliards d'euros sont bloqués pendant six semaines, le temps de séparer les produits liquides de ceux qui ne parviendront à trouver preneur qu'à prix cassés.

Pour Laurent Mignon, l'affaire appartient déjà quasiment au passé. Il se dit « confiant » sur la cession des parts de H2O, qui devrait intervenir avant la fin de l'année. Et il assure que les leçons ont été tirées : « Il y a des choses à ajuster, mais on progresse, on apprend, assure le dirigeant. Natixis s'est déjà renforcé dans sa façon de travailler. » Un message qu'il doit faire passer au sein du groupe. Car l'affaire H2O a provoqué bien des grognements au sein de BPCE. « Les réseaux des Banques populaires et des Caisses d'épargne font le boulot et sont parvenus à accroître leurs revenus, même dans la crise, relève un bon connaisseur du groupe. Leurs dirigeants en ont assez de se voir présenter les factures des dérapages de la banque de marché. » En décembre 2018, l'établissement avait déjà vu ses résultats amputés de 260 millions d'euros en raison de placements hasardeux sur les marchés asiatiques. « Plus qu'un impact financier, le dossier H2O a des conséquences en termes d'image » , continue un responsable du groupe.

« En outre, on voit bien que l'affaire H2O a sa part dans la chute du cours de Bourse de Natixis, complète un employé de la banque. Or, avec l'actionnariat salarié qui pèse 3 % du capital de la société, les collègues constatent tous qu'un trou se creuse dans leur patrimoine. »

Un groupe « balkanisé »

Un autre élément alimente les débats. En plein mois d'août, après la publication d'une perte de 57 millions d'euros au deuxième trimestre, Laurent Mignon a démis sans états d'âme François Riahi, à la tête de Natixis depuis deux ans. Des dirigeants de BPCE expliquent aujourd'hui que cet énarque, ex-conseiller de Nicolas Sarkozy à l'Elysée, manquait d'esprit d'entreprise. « Riahi n'est qu'un lampiste, s'agace au contraire le connaisseur du groupe. Il n'est pas responsable des problèmes de H2O, qui existaient en germe avant son arrivée. Cette décision de le “démissionner” envoie un très mauvais message aux équipes. »

Successeur de Riahi, Nicolas Na-mias, jusqu'alors responsable de la stratégie et des finances de Natixis,

« fait preuve d'un grand esprit de leadership » , pointe Laurent Mignon. Cet énarque et ex-conseiller de Jean-Marc Ayrault à Matignon a la lourde tâche d'écrire la stratégie de rebond de Natixis qui sera révélée l'an prochain. « Un costume trop grand pour lui, estime pourtant un chasseur de têtes. Il n'est que la courroie de transmission de Laurent Mignon. » Peu de temps après ces changements, un des hauts responsables de Natixis a d'ailleurs