FT : Prada profits sink amid Asian and European sales slowdown


Profits at Prada tumbled 28 per cent last year as sales took a hit in Europe and Asia-Pacific, prompting the luxury Italian fashion house to implement cost-cutting measures.
Net income at the company fell from €628m to €451m in the year ended January 31, missing analysts’ estimates of €468m. This was the first time Prada reported a drop in annual net profit since it listed in Hong Kong four years ago. Revenues fell 1 per cent to €3.55bn.

Prada blamed the “ongoing economic uncertainty” for the slowdown. Sales grew in the Americas and Japan, but the gains in the world’s third-largest economy were not enough to fully offset declines across the region, with sales in Asia-Pacific, its biggest market accounting for 35.7 per cent of sales, dropping 3.1 per cent. They fell 4.9 per cent in Europe.
Chinese president Xi Jinping has been cracking down on political graft, waste and ostentatious lifestyles, causing large sales declines in Hong Kong and Macau. Greater China sales fell 6.3 per cent.
After several years of soaring revenues and profits, a sales slowdown in the wake of dampening Asian consumer enthusiasm, volatile exchange rates and geopolitical instability is taking its toll on the once unstoppable luxury sector. French rival conglomerate LVMH, which owns luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior, also noted weakness in mainland China and Hong Kong when it announced its annual results in February.
Prada was also hit by its tax rate, which rose to 31.2 per cent last year from 30.9 per cent.
Analysts at Barclays said the figures capped a challenging year, which saw the group miss “all its initial targets owing to a difficult retail environment and increasing competition in leather goods”. Sales of leather goods fell 4.9 per cent to €2.2bn.
To prop up margins, Prada said it was conducting “a major overhaul” in certain production processes, “the effects of which will be visible next year”, cutting costs in light of the slowdown in growth, including those also associated with opening new stores.

Shareholders reacted positively, with Prada’s Hong Kong-listed stock rising 2.2 per cent in early trading.
The Barclays analysts, however, retained an “underweight” rating, noting Prada trades at a 20 per cent premium to its peers “despite the lower earnings growth potential.”
Prada shares had gained 14.6 per cent this year as of market close on Friday, compared with a 3.7 per cent rise in the benchmark Hang Seng index. The stock was down 1 per cent at HK$50 during afternoon trading in Hong Kong on Monday.

WSJ : Abu Dhabi’s IPIC Eyes More Energy Investments

Abu Dhabi’s IPIC Eyes More Energy Investments

Wealth fund aims to take advantage of currently depressed energy prices


ABU DHABI—An Abu Dhabi-backed wealth fund is seeking to take advantage of currently depressed energy prices to acquire more exploration and production assets globally, its managing director said.

International Petroleum Investment Co. will continue to invest in the energy sector despite the slide in oil prices but the focus is now on upstream assets, Khadem Abdulla Al Qubaisi told The Wall Street Journal.

“When the oil prices are coming down to $50 or $40 or $30 a barrel, the spending will continue but you will shift a little bit,” Mr. Qubaisi said. “Is there a major change here, a big change? No, we will continue [spending],” he said.

But “there is more focus towards E&P due to the low oil-price environment. We are in the due diligence [process] for some companies. IPIC started global and will continue as a global player, not as Middle Eastern,” Mr. Qubaisi said. He declined to name the companies that IPIC is currently reviewing for potential investments.

IPIC, which is a state-owned fund with a main mandate to invest in energy-related assets, is however not keen on investing in refining and marketing due to the low margins in that area at the moment, Mr. Qubaisi noted.

To that extent, he said the company is also “restructuring, optimizing” its existing assets in Spain’s Cepsa and Austria’s OMV due to the current situation in the market, but didn’t provide more details.

Cepsa, an energy company fully-owned by the Abu Dhabi fund since 2011, plans to focus primarily on its E&P and petrochemical business units as part of its strategic plan posted on its website. IPIC has a 24.9% stake in OMV.

An oil slump since the middle of last year due to a supply glut has weighed on the growth plans of most energy-related entities, pushing them to cut costs and realign their strategies amid expectations that crude prices are likely to remain low in the near future.

>>> FX positionning ... interesting

FX positionning ... interesting

The latest Commitment of Traders (COT) report from the US CFTC shows that leveraged players* increased their net short EURUSD positions on the IMM (CME) in the week ending Tuesday March 4. During that period, EURUSD rallied from around 1.0600 to briefly test above 1.1000.

The leveraged short is now the largest it has been since June 2006, which is as far as Bloomberg charts the data back to. The previous largest net position was in June 2012. The position then unwound and EURUSD rallied around 14-big figures.

>>> Publicis - share Buyback Program 3.935mil shares betw. 30/03 & 31/07

Publicis announces stock repurchase plan
Co announced it has put in place a share repurchase agreement with an Investment Service Provider for its Share Buyback Program as approved by its Annual Shareholders' Meeting of May 28, 2014.
  • This agreement signed on March 27, 2015 covers a maximum volume of 3,935,000 shares at an average price remaining within the limits imposed by the Annual Shareholders' Meeting of May 28, 2014. The price to be paid by the Company for each share shall be determined on the basis of the arithmetic mean of the daily volume-weighted average prices during the repurchase period, and shall not exceed that amount.
  • The repurchase period provided in the agreement shall start on March 30, 2015 and end not later than July 31, 2015.


--> FYI Last year on the same period (30/03 --> 30/07 2014) 62,4mil shares traded

(BFW) PSAM Seeks Reply From Vivendi on Governance Issues

PRN 03/30 06:30 PSAM Questions Corporate Governance At Vivendi
BN 03/30 06:33 *PSAM SAYS NEVER CALLED FOR DISMANTLING OF VIVENDI
BN 03/30 06:33 *PSAM SAYS BOLLORE CLEARLY DOESN'T HAVE DETAILED STRATEGIC PLAN
BN 03/30 06:32 *PSAM QUESTIONS VIVENDI'S 2014 BUYBACK PRICING, BOLLORE STAKE
BN 03/30 06:30 *PSAM SEEKS REPLY FROM VIVENDI ON GOVERNANCE ISSUES
PSAM Seeks Reply From Vivendi on Governance Issues
2015-03-30 06:48:09.814 GMT


By Blanche Gatt
(Bloomberg) -- P. Schoenfeld Asset Management says has sent
letter to Vivendi board containing questions about corporate
governance, seeking clarification of recent actions taken by
Chairman Vincent Bollore.
* Questions Vivendi’s 2014 buyback pricing, Bollore stake
* Says Bollore “clearly does not have” detailed strategic
plan for co.
* Questions why maximum buyback price was lowered to EU20/shr
from previous amount EU24/shr
* Says has never called for the dismantling of Vivendi
* NOTE March 28: Vivendi Should Release Foreign-Holder
Information, PSAM Says Link
* NOTE March 27: Vivendi Warns PSAM by Letter Over Canal Plus
Stake Link

Link to Statement:Link
Link to Company News:{BOL FP <Equity> CN <GO>}
Link to Company News:{VIV FP <Equity> CN <GO>}

For Related News and Information:
First Word scrolling panel: {FIRST<GO>}
First Word newswire: {NH BFW<GO>}

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Blanche Gatt at +44-20-3525-0351 or
bgatt@bloomberg.net

FT : Bridgepoint raises €4bn fund as private equity finance soars


Bridgepoint, the European buyout firm and owner of Pret A Manger in the UK, has raised €4bn for its latest fund in another sign of the wave of cash rushing into private equity.
The fundraising, Bridgepoint’s first since a €4.8bn vehicle in 2008, has taken less than a year to reach a “hard cap” beyond its original €3.5bn target.

Institutional investors have been putting more money into private equity as they look to reinvest record levels of cash being returned by their existing fund investments.
Low interest rates and high valuations in public markets have made it easier for firms to sell or list companies, and to mark up the value of holdings.
Bridgepoint made more than two and a half times its original investment when it sold Swiss sports rights company Infront to Dalian Wanda of China for more than €1bn this year.
Low interest rates have also made pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and endowments wary of keeping cash on their books for too long.
Bridgepoint said its new fund “has benefited from significant recommitment of existing investors” who increased their contributions by more than 25 per cent on average.
The new fund, which will continue Bridgepoint’s strategy of investing in mid-market European companies valued at more than €200m, has already made its first investment by buying the ASK and Zizzi Italian restaurants in the UK.
Bridgepoint is also investing to expand Pret abroad, including in the US and China. It acquired the sandwich chain in 2008.
Traditional buyout funds are pools of money invested by private equity firms on behalf of “limited partners”, who lock up capital for years in the hope of high double-digit returns.
Firms are looking to raise more than €80bn for European buyout funds at present, according to Bloomberg data. More than half of the fundraising was announced in the past year, with €28bn of it in the past six months.
The French firm PAI Partners recently exceeded its target when raising €3.3bn for its latest fund, in a comeback from an internal management “coup” which clouded its last fundraising in 2008.
Despite the cash flowing into private equity, relatively few deals are being done amid fears of high prices driving down future returns.
As of the middle of March there have only been €20bn in private equity takeovers so far this year, according to Palico, a data provider. That is the lowest level since 2002 — when the industry was a third of its current size.