US streetwear star Williams takes over at French label Givenchy

Paris- The American streetwear designer Matthew M. Williams was named Monday as the new head of aristocratic French fashion house Givenchy.

The 34-year-old creator is the second US streetwear star to be given the reins of a major French luxury label, after his friend Virgil Abloh, who designs Louis Vuitton menswear.

Like Abloh, Chicago-born Williams first worked with the rapper Kanye West before going out on his own with his 1017 ALYX 9SM brand.

Based in Italy, where Williams now lives, it has become so hot it got a name check alongside Nike in Canadian singer Drake's new song "Toosie Slide."

"It's been my life-long dream to be in this position, and it is really surreal that it is finally here," Williams said in a post on Instagram.

"I have worked every day for 15 years towards this single goal. 

"At the same time, it's bittersweet because we are living in unprecedented times and I just hope in some way I can bring hope and with my community create positive change for the industry and for the world," he added.

Williams has previously said that he owes everything to Kanye West, who is married to Kim Kardashian.

Kanye West is his mentor 

"He is the person that gave me my first break. I created a suit jacket for him to wear to the Grammys when I was 21. He then asked me how much I got paid, to which I replied, 'Nothing.' And he said, 'Okay, I'm going to give you double nothing to come work with me.' 

"The next day I was on a plane with him to Japan. He's been an amazing friend and mentor," Williams said.

The designer later founded the cult music and fashion collective Been Trill with West, Abloh and fellow US streetwear sensation Heron Preston.

Their most notorious creation was a set of laces bearing the words "Fuck Off" that cost $100.

Sidney Toledano, of LVMH, the French fashion giant of which Givenchy is a part, said it had "watched Williams grow into a great talent.

"I believe his singular vision of modernity will be a great opportunity for Givenchy to write its new chapter."

The name of Williams' own brand comes from his daughter Alyx (pronounced "a-leeks") and his own date of birth, October 17.

Something that deserves to exist

As well as his street cred, Williams has eco credentials from his belief that clothes should be made to last a lifetime.

"There are too many clothes on this Earth. If I am going to take the responsibility of making clothing, I need to make something that deserves to exist," he told GQ magazine.

The American replaces the British designer Clare Waight Keller, who stepped down in April after three years at the fabled, but until her arrival rather faded house.

Her biggest coup was making the wedding dress for Meghan Markle when she married Britain's Prince Harry in 2018.

Waight Keller, 49, also created a menswear range for the label that was once the favorite of Audrey Hepburn as well as bringing it back into the Paris haute couture ranks.

Williams, however, will only design Givenchy's men's and women's collections, which is sure to spark speculation that the brand is withdrawing from the elite Paris shows.

His first Givenchy show will be in Paris in October.

Agence France-Presse

Louis Vuitton group buys Tiffany in $16.2-billion deal

PARIS - LVMH and US jewelers Tiffany announced Monday a $16.2 billion tie-up that is the French luxury group's biggest-ever acquisition and will bolster its presence in the United States.

The companies said in a statement they "have entered into a definitive agreement whereby LVMH will acquire Tiffany for $135 per share in cash, in a transaction with an equity value of approximately 14.7 billion euros or $16.2 billion."

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French luxury giant LVMH nears deal to buy Tiffany

LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton will be having a lot of breakfasts at Tiffany’s — as well as lunches, dinners and board meetings.

The world’s largest luxury goods company is close to completing a deal to buy Tiffany & Co., according to people briefed on the acquisition. The combination, worth $16.7 billion, would be the largest ever in the luxury sector.

The companies were putting the finishing touches on the transaction Sunday afternoon, with the boards of both companies meeting to approve the deal, these people said. They hope to announce it Monday morning.

LVMH is dominant in the fashion, leather goods and wines and spirits sectors with brands like Dior, Givenchy, Fendi, Château d’Yquem and Dom Pérignon. The acquisition of Tiffany would make it a major player in the so-called hard luxury sector (things like watches and jewelry), adding to its purchase of Bulgari in 2011. It also gives the French group its most significant beachhead in the American market. The Tiffany brand is recognizable around the world thanks to its signature blue boxes, but it also occupies a singular, romantic place in the American landscape: Its Fifth Avenue flagship is as much a landmark in the myth of aspiration and the gleaming promise of sparkling baubles as Rockefeller Center or the Plaza hotel.

At the same time, the deal would end Tiffany’s 182-year history as a stand-alone brand, and it reflects the difficulty of remaining independent in an age of increasing consolidation.

LVMH, controlled by Europe’s richest man, Bernard Arnault, will pay $135 per share in cash for the jeweler, these people said. The terms of the final bid, which were first reported by the Financial Times on Sunday, value Tiffany shares at $16.3 billion. The company has about $350 million in debt.

The agreement comes after weeks of tense discussions between the two companies. Last month, the Tiffany board rejected an all-cash offer of $120 a share. LVMH then increased its offer to $130 last week and was granted access to Tiffany’s books to conduct due diligence, prompting a jump in the jeweler’s share price amid increased speculation that a deal was forthcoming.

LVMH’s takeover of Tiffany signifies the company’s increasing interest in areas beyond traditional soft luxury goods like clothing and leather goods. It follows its acquisition of Belmond hospitality group last December for $2.6 billion and a majority stake in German luggage brand Rimowa in 2016 for $719 million. It also marks LVMH’s second major investment in an American brand this year, following its creation of a new luxury house, Fenty, with Rihanna. (The group also inaugurated a factory for Louis Vuitton in Texas last month with great fanfare, specifically to make handbags for the American market. President Donald Trump cut the symbolic ribbon during the official ceremony.)

The deal potentially doubles the size and profitability of its hard luxury portfolio, which beyond Bulgari also includes Chaumet, Fred, Hublot and Tag Heuer and accounts for 9 percent of total LVMH sales. A Tiffany takeover would probably make LVMH more competitive with Richemont, the Swiss luxury group that owns Cartier. Jewelry was among the top growth luxury categories last year, up 7 percent, according to a report by global consulting company Bain & Co.

And it solidifies the reputation of Arnault, 70, as the most aggressive, and acquisitive deal-maker in luxury.

Tiffany, after a rocky period in which it appeared to lose sight of its core consumers, prompting stagnant sales and the departure of its chief executive, has staged a comeback in recent years under a new chief executive, Alessandro Bogliolo. He cut back on lower-priced gifting options, revamped marketing to target younger shoppers and pursued greater expansion in China.

Reed Krakoff, the designer who transformed Coach from a dusty handbag brand into a driver of the contemporary market, joined as artistic director in 2017, and has also been instrumental in recasting the brand’s offerings to appeal to the social media set, with such collections as “everyday objects” like tin cans, balls of yarn, and protractors in sterling silver, a new “paper flowers”collection in rare gems and an ad campaign with Lady Gaga (who wore the 128.54-carat Tiffany Diamond on the Oscars red carpet in February).

Bogliolo also happened to be the chief executive of Bulgari during the LVMH takeover of that brand, so he has some expertise in managing the transition into the group. Though LVMH has struggled with its American brands in the past, buying Donna Karan in 2001 only to ultimately close the designer’s main line and sell the brand name to G-III Apparel in 2016, and never going through with a planned public offering for Marc Jacobs, Tiffany may prove a more comfortable fit.

For both companies, the tie-up also represents an important opportunity to grow in China, the world’s second-largest economy and an engine of global spending on high-end shoes, bags, fashion, jewelry and watches despite recent concerns over a trade war and the standoff in Hong Kong.

Tiffany began targeting the emerging Chinese bridal and engagement ring market more than a decade ago, and today has a strong following and brand awareness among the country’s upper and middle class consumers. It operates around 35 stores in mainland China and a further 10 in Hong Kong. The yuan depreciation, the U.S.-China trade war and the Hong Kong protests have hit Chinese tourist spending hard, however, prompting Tiffany to increase its mainland investments and bring high-value items to Chinese shoppers closer to home, a strategy that will probably be fueled further by LVMH after the deal is completed.

“Tiffany finds a very comfortable new home and LVMH finds one of the most promising brands available,” said Luca Solca, luxury analyst at Bernstein.

Not to mention an early end to their holiday shopping.


2019 The New York Times Company

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Louis Vuitton group raises Tiffany bid to $16 billion: sources

NEW YORK -- French luxury group LVMH has raised its bid to acquire US jewelers Tiffany by over $1 billion, two sources close to the matter told AFP Wednesday.

LVMH, the owner of Louis Vuitton, Dior and Moet & Chandon increased its bid for the storied New York-based company to around $130 per share from $120 per share, the sources said.

The move lifts the overall value for Tiffany to around $16 billion from $14.5 billion.

Neither LVMH nor Tiffany immediately responded to a request for comment.

LVMH, which is led by billionaire Bernard Arnault, has sought to acquire Tiffany as a means to boost its presence in the US market.

The transaction has also been seen as way forward for Tiffany, which has not matched some rivals in terms of sales growth in recent years.

Some analysts have predicted a price hike would seal the transaction.

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French luxury group LVMH offers to buy US jeweler Tiffany: sources

NEW YORK/PARIS - Louis Vuitton owner LVMH has approached Tiffany & Co with a $14.5 billion acquisition offer, people familiar with the matter said, at a time when the US luxury jeweler grapples with the impact of tariffs on its exports to China.

LVMH, which has for years been looking for ways to expand in the US market, submitted a preliminary, non-binding offer to Tiffany earlier this month, one of the sources said.

LVMH's offer valued Tiffany at about $120 per share, another of the sources added. Tiffany shares ended trading on Friday at $98.55.

Tiffany has hired advisers to review LVMH's offer but has not yet responded to it, and there is no certainty that it will negotiate a deal, according to the sources.

The sources asked not to be identified because the matter is confidential. LVMH and Tiffany declined to comment. Bloomberg News reported earlier on Saturday that LVMH was holding talks with Tiffany.

LVMH, which is behind brands such as Fendi, Christian Dior and Givenchy, as well as Veuve Cliquot champagne, has stood out for several years as one of the top performers in the upscale retail sector, where not all labels are benefiting to the same degree from booming Chinese appetite for branded goods.

Tiffany, on the other hand, has not been as resilient. Beyond the tariffs that have been triggered by the trade war between the United States and China, a lower Chinese domestic sales tax has also contributed to double-digit decreases in its sales to Chinese tourists in the United States and in other destinations.

High-end brands have also long relied on Hong Kong as a major shopping hub drawing visitors from mainland China in particular, and four months of pro-democracy demonstrations are starting to take their toll.

However, earlier this month LVMH, which has a market capitalization of 194 billion euros ($215 billion), beat sales forecasts for the third quarter despite the unrest in Hong Kong. In August, Tiffany reported quarterly earnings that also beat analysts' expectations, thanks to a drop in marketing costs.

Tiffany has been refreshing its offerings with more affordable items such as pendants and earrings, to appeal to millennials who have been gravitating to lower-priced competitors such as Denmark's Pandora A/S and Signet Jewelers.

Paris-headquartered LVMH is controlled by the Arnault family and is led by Bernard Arnault, France's richest man. Based in New York and best known for its diamond engagement rings, Tiffany operates more than 300 retail stores globally.

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Major fashion companies to make G7 pledge to help environment

PARIS - Major fashion companies from around the world said on Friday they had signed a pact which they would present at this week's G7 summit to help protect the environment.

The pact has been signed by 32 companies including the likes of Adidas, Burberry, Kering, Hermes, LVMH and Nike.

Protecting the environment will be a leading issue at the G7, with French President Emmanuel Macron and United Nations Secretary General António Guterres having expressed concern this week over wildfires raging through the Amazon.

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Tory Burch engaged to CEO of LVMH

Now this is what you call a fashion power couple.

Designer Tory Burch welcomed 2016 with a bang as she announced her engagement to her boyfriend of one and a half years, Pierre-Yves Roussel.

Burch, known for her self-named fashion brand, posted a photo of herself and Roussel on her Instagram account with the caption: “We are tying the knot… #blessed #engaged #happynewyear.”



Roussel is the chairman and chief executive officer of LVMH Fashion Group, which owns luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Celine, Marc Jacobs and Givenchy.

Burch, 49, has been dating 50-year-old Roussel since the summer of 2014.

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Tag Heuer, Intel to launch Android smartwatch

BASEL, Switzerland - Tag Heuer, French luxury group LVMH's biggest watch maker, said it will launch a smartwatch later this year using Google Inc's Android operating system in a venture with Intel Corp to compete head-on with the Apple Watch.

Tag Heuer Chief Executive Jean-Claude Biver declined to give any details about pricing, functionality or design, but said on Thursday that it aimed to launch what would be the first Android luxury smartwatch in the fourth quarter.

The Apple Watch is due to go on sale on April 24 and will range in price from $350 to $17,000 for an 18-karat gold model. It is the company's first major new product in five years and consumer demand for the device is being closely watched by competitors and investors.

The device needs an Apple iPhone to work fully, and analysts say the most likely pool of initial buyers will already have an Apple smartphone in their pockets.

"We believe wearable technology will take off," Michael Bell, vice president of Intel's New Devices unit, said at a news conference with Tag Heuer at the Baselworld watch and jewellery fair.

Intel struck partnerships with several consumer goods companies last year to develop smart wearable products, including eyewear brand Oakley, owned by Luxottica, watchmaker Fossil, and U.S. fashion brand Opening Ceremony.

"Tag Heuer’s decision to partner with technology companies to deliver a smartwatch ... will likely be the first of many similar deals," Ben Wood, chief of research at CCS Insight, said.

"With Apple Watch hitting the market it's no longer viable for Swiss watchmakers to bury their heads in the sand. Now Tag Heuer has signalled its intention to enter the smartwatch market we are certain others will follow."

Gucci said on Thursday that it would develop a smartband with i.am+ whose functions would include phone calls, text messages, emails and music. The unit of French luxury group Kering PRTP.PA gave no details of pricing or launch timing.

Some luxury executives remained sceptical about smartwatches, however.

Marc Hayek, who heads Swatch Group watch brands Breguet, Jaquet Droz and Blancpain, joined the chorus of luxury executives alongside Hermes and Patek Philippe who said they had no plans to launch a smartwatch.

"The Apple Watch is not a real watch but a consumer electronic," he told Reuters in Basel on Thursday.

Hayek forecast his three brands would enjoy a similar year in terms of sales growth to 2014, although trading in Hong Kong, one of his biggest markets, remained difficult.

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LVMH and Hermes call truce in 'handbag war'

PARIS - A long and bitter battle that has gripped the luxury goods industry and pitted two of France's richest families against each other came to an unexpected end on Wednesday when LVMH and Hermes agreed to a truce.

Under the deal, LVMH - the world's No.1 luxury group, controlled by France's wealthiest man Bernard Arnault - agreed to relinquish most of its 23.2 percent stake in Hermes and not acquire any shares in its smaller rival for five years.

It effectively buried the possibility LVMH could make a full takeover bid for the 177-year-old maker of Birkin and Kelly handbags. Such a prospect had boosted Hermes's stock, which has been trading at a price-to-earnings ratios of about 30 times in recent years, a 70 percent premium to the industry average.

Shares in Hermes fell nearly 10 percent to 236.5 euros in early trading on Wednesday, wiping out 2.8 billion euros ($3.7 billion) off its market value - equivalent to around 350,000 Birkin handbags based on an average price of 8,000 euros . By market close, they were down 3.5 percent.

"The speculative premium has disappeared," said Barclays France director Franklin Pichard.

The deal, under which LVMH agreed to redistribute its stake in Hermes to its shareholders, ends four years of legal warfare between the luxury titans, dubbed the "handbag war" by the press.

In 2010 LVMH - whose brands include fashion labels Christian Dior and Louis Vuitton, Hennessy cognac and Dom Perignon champagne - revealed it had built up a 17 percent stake in Hermes. It made the investment through a series of equity derivatives instead of straightforward share purchases, which prevented it from having to declaring them.

Hermes, one of France's last major independent luxury group still controlled by the founding family, vehemently protested at having its arch-rival as its biggest external shareholder.

FAMILY FORTUNES
According to French magazine Challenge, the Hermes family is Frances's fourth richest with a fortune estimated at nearly 19 billion euros, behind LVMH's Arnaults - estimated at 27 billion euros, L'Oreal's Bettencourts and Auchan's Mulliez. They come just ahead of Chanel's Wertheimer brothers.

Arnault had long set his sights on Hermes as it is considered one of the luxury brands that best resists downturns, with its products increasingly regarded as investments and benefiting from a thriving second-hand market.

While the sales growth of rival mega-brands such as Gucci and Louis Vuitton have ground to a halt in the past year, Hermes has continued to enjoy an annual revenue rise of more than 10 percent, consistently higher than the industry average.

The deal marks the first time Arnault - whose LVMH group has gobbled up more than 60 brands in the past two decades, including sizeable ones such as Roman jeweller Bulgari - abandons the pursuit of a prized target.

But the truce nevertheless offers a profitable solution for LVMH, which began building up its stake in Hermes in 2007 and 2008. It stands to make a theoretical gain on its holding of around 3 billion euros, analysts estimated.

"This clears up the situation and it is one of the few divorces in which both the partners are winners," said Mario Ortelli, luxury goods analyst at Bernstein.

Groupe Arnault, the family holding company of LVMH, will own 8.5 percent of Hermes after the share distribution.

ELEGANT

Arnault is a proven master at exploiting family tensions when trying to buy a company. When the dispute started in 2010, industry observers thought the billionaire would seek to apply the same technique to Hermes' more than 100 family shareholders, divided between the Puech, Dumas and Guerrands.

A year later, most key family members except Nicolas Puech, who owned just under 6 percent of Hermes' shareholder capital, agreed to join a holding that controlled the company and bound them for two decades, making a takeover virtually impossible.

"LVMH has found an elegant way out of what was a deadlock," JP Morgan Cazenove said of the peace deal.

LVMH shares, flat since Jan. 1, rose about 3 percent on Wednesday. LVMH stock has underperformed the luxury goods industry in the past year over concerns about declining cognac sales in China and slower sales growth at its main profit generator Louis Vuitton.

The French stock market regulator fined LVMH last year for failing to properly disclose the stakebuilding and Hermes launched legal action against LVMH on allegations of insider trading and stock price manipulation.

LVMH fought back with proceedings against Hermes for libel.

The agreement signed on Tuesday night ended all legal proceedings between the two companies, they said in a joint statement issued on Wednesday.

For 21 LVMH shares, shareholders will receive 1 Hermes share, sources close to LVMH said. The distribution of Hermes shares will be completed no later than Dec. 20. (Additional reporting by Andy Callus, Pascale Denis, Alexandre Boksenbaum-Granier and Blaise Robinson; Editing by Pravin Char)

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Marc Jacobs to leave Louis Vuitton: report

PARIS -- Designer Marc Jacobs is to leave Louis Vuitton to concentrate on his own brand and a future stock exchange flotation, a report said on Wednesday.

The US designer and the chairman of Louis Vuitton parent company LVMH, Bernard Arnault, confirmed the end of his 16-year tenure at the French luxury brand to industry journal Women's Wear Daily.

The news coincided with Jacobs' Louis Vuitton show on the last day of Paris fashion week.

It follows contract negotiations between Jacobs, 50, whose contract had been due to expire at the end of the year, and Louis Vuitton and LVMH.

It is understood that the initial public offering, expected within the next three years, will require Jacobs to be fully focused on his own brand in order to ensure the highest possible valuation.

A successor has not been named but Louis Vuitton is understood to have held talks with former Balenciaga designer Nicolas Ghesquiere about succeeding Jacobs as artistic director, sources told WWD earlier.

It credited Jacobs with transforming Louis Vuitton from a "stodgy luggage house to a global fashion presence."

Frenchman Ghesquiere parted company with Balenciaga in November 2012 following a 15-year tenure.

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