| The ESCADA Group is an international
fashion group for women's apparel and accessories, which
is active on the international luxury goods market. It
has pursued a course of steady expansion since its founding
in 1976 by Margaretha and Wolfgang Ley and today has 182
own shops and 225 franchise shops/corners in more than
60 countries.
The ESCADA segment comprises the product lines ESCADA
and ESCADA Sport. Women's ready-to-wear fashion for
occasions such as day or evening wear, leisure, business
and couture are designed, produced and sold under the
umbrella of the ESCADA brand. Accessories, handbags,
shoes and small leather goods round off the fashion
clothing. In addition to these, ESCADA has licensed
products for fragrances, eyewear and kidswear. The product
line ESCADA Sport offers ready-to-wear fashion for women
as well as accessories. With its product lines ESCADA
and ESCADA Sport the company ranks as one of the world's
leaders in terms of sales volume and international presence
for ready-to-wear women's fashion in the high-end segment.
The brand's key sales markets are located in western
and eastern Europe, North America and Asia.
The PRIMERA segment's operations are strategically
independent of the ESCADA segment and comprise the labels
apriori, BiBA, cavita and Laurèl. These labels
are positioned in the mid- to upper-price range, just
below or bordering the luxury goods market (the so-called
bridge segment), offering fashion for various occasions
such as day or evening wear, business, sport and leisure.
A smaller selection of accessories is also sold under
the label Laurèl.
The ESCADA Group is led by an international top management
team which in turn is headed by a board of management
composed of four executive directors. Since July 1,
2008 Dr. Bruno Sälzer (former executive at Hugo
Boss) took over as CEO.
ESCADA AG has been listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange
since 1986. The company acts as the operating head of
the ESCADA Group and has its registered offices in Aschheim
near Munich/Germany. The capital stock of ESCADA AG
amounts to EUR 107,018,009.60 and is divided into 20,901,955
no-par-value bearer shares (WKN: 569210; ISIN: DE0005692107).
In fiscal year 2007/08 the ESCADA Group generated sales
of 582.1 million euros (2006/07: 686.1 million euros).
The ESCADA segment generated sales of 388.7 million
euros (2006/07: 461.1 million Euro). PRIMERA recorded
sales of 211.0 million Euro after 247.7 million euros
in the previous fiscal year. In an increasingly more
difficult market environment for the luxury goods industry,
which was still further aggravated by the financial
crisis, sales and earnings remained significantly below
last year's figures. In addition, the earnings situation
was burdened in the amount of 42.8 million euros through
special items and restructuring costs as well as unscheduled
depreciation losses on goodwill, other assets and deferred
taxes. Group loss after taxes amounted to -70.3 million
euros after -27.0 million euros in the previous fiscal
year.
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