Lanvin Group Holdings Limited 2026 Q2 Earnings Call

Thanks very much. Welcome, everyone, and good morning. I am Ross, and I am very pleased to join Lanvin Group as the Chief Financial Officer, in June this year. I look forward to working with Andy and also our brand leadership team to further strengthen the group's financial performance and to support the next phase of our transformation. The first half of 2026 was an important period for the group as we continued to execute our transformation while operating in a still very challenging luxury market environment. We have made meaningful progress on the quality and the efficiency of the business. Gross margin improved to 59%, while the contribution profit and adjusted EBITDA margins have both improved by 7.7 and 10.7 percentage points, respectively. At the group level, revenue was EUR 101 million, down 13% on a year-over-year basis.

This reflects the broader transformation and the rationalization of the business on the way across all of our brands. I wanted to highlight that our e-commerce business returned to growth in the first half of 2026, and we continue to make progress in reshaping the retail footprint with 151 directly operated stores by the end of June 2026. The most important takeaway from the first half I wanted to share with you is that the transformation is translating into a leaner and more efficient operating process. We are now focused on taking that foundation and converting that to renewed growth. Now please allow me to briefly highlight some of the developments across the four brands that we have. At Lanvin, the house continued to build creative momentum with its FW26 Paris runway, received a strong response from the market.

The brand also marked an important milestone with the 100th anniversary of Lanvin Menswear and further strengthened its leadership during the time. At Wolford, we saw encouraging stabilization in the underlying business. Gross margin recovered to approximately 60%, while the brand continued to strengthen its supply chain capabilities and advance its ESG initiatives. We also entered a new leadership chapter with Marco Pozzo as the CFO and also Chairman. At Sergio Rossi, the focus has been on repositioning the business around a more focused and asset-light model. The brand has streamlined its supplier base, strengthened the strategic partnerships, and also continued to rationalize its retail network. Importantly, wholesale, excluding third-party production, has grown 21% year over year, giving us a stronger base to build on that in the second half. At St. John, we continue to see resilience in the underlying business.

E-commerce grew 31% in its reporting currency, and the growth margin remained very strong at approximately 70%. The brand is developing new channel opportunities while preparing for its next chapter of creative development in the second half. Across our portfolio, we are seeing encouraging signs that the work on the brand's products and operating model is beginning to create a stronger foundation for future growth. Let's now turn to our priorities for the second half of the year. Our priority is to continue executing the reset and the transformation agenda. This includes the ongoing optimization of our retail footprint and also further improvements in how we operate across the group. Secondly, we want to move beyond the optimization and focus increasingly on growth opportunities across different markets, channels, and product categories.

Thirdly, we will make greater use of partnerships and collaborations to extend the reach of our brands, access new customers, and develop additional revenue opportunities, including through asset-light models. Finally, we'll also remain disciplined on costs, working capital, and cash while selectively investing behind the areas that can generate the strongest returns. In addition, we will continue to optimize the group's brand portfolio, ensuring that our resources remain focused on the brands and opportunities with the strongest long-term potential. We believe the combination of a leaner operating model, stronger brand leadership Ladies and gentlemen, it looks like we've lost connection with our speaker.

Apologies for dropping off for technical issues. I can resume. We believe the combination of the leaner operating model and the stronger brand leadership, and a more focused approach to growth will give us a solid platform for the next phase. Now, please allow me to turn everybody's attention to the group's financial performance in the first half of 2026. As mentioned previously, the revenue for first half was EUR 101 million, representing a 13% year-over-year decline. However, the more important feature of the first half was the substantial improvement in profitability. The growth margin of the group has increased from 57.7% to 59%, and the contribution profit margin improved from negative 15.6 to negative 8.9, while the adjusted EBITDA margin improved from negative 45% to negative 34%.

In absolute terms, the contribution profit has improved by approximately EUR 10 million, and the adjusted EBITDA improved by approximately EUR 17 million. These improvements reflect the benefits of our efficiency programs, lower selling expenses, and also a more disciplined base cost structure. We have seen tangible evidence that the reset is improving the economics of the business, even before a broader revenue recovery is reflected in the results. Page 8 put our first half revenue performance into a longer-term perspective. The decline in revenue this year reflects both the market environment and the deliberate actions we have taken to reshape the portfolio and distribution footprint. In particular, we have continued to rationalize underperforming retail locations, while encouraging like-for-like performance has partially offset the impact of those closures.

While rebuilding the top line remains an area of focus for us, we are also entering the second half with a more focused network, a lower cost base, and also improving digital momentum. Page 9 highlights the improvement in our operating cost structure. We have continued to reduce the cost base across the group while being very selective about where we maintain or increase investment. Marketing and selling expenses have become more efficient, while G&A has also declined significantly from prior periods. These actions have translated directly into the significant improvement in profitability that we delivered in H1. The next page 10, shows the evolution of the G&A costs across the portfolio. Since the first half of 2023, we have continued to reduce brand level G&A by approximately 30% at Lanvin, 50% at Wolford, 45% at Sergio Rossi, and 43% at St. John.

These reductions reflect a combination of organizational simplification, tighter spending discipline, and a more focused operating model. At the same time, we continued to selectively invest in the areas that are critical to long-term brand development, including creativity, product, and customer engagement. The balance we are aiming for is very clear. A leaner cost base without compromising the capabilities that are required to grow our brands. Page 11 continues to cover our retail footprint. As mentioned during the first half, we continued to re-rationalize the network, reducing directly operated stores from 174 at the end of 2025 to 151 at the end of June 2026. This remains an ongoing process. We are continuing to rationalize the underperforming locations in the stores while selectively pursuing strategic openings where we see appropriate. The objective is to create a more focused and productive retail platform with stronger economics and a better customer experience.

As this work continues, we are also increasingly focused on driving productivity within the existing network and through traffic generation, clienteling, merchandising, and services. I will now move to the individual brand results, starting with Lanvin first. Lanvin generated revenue of EUR 22.9 million in the first half, down by 17.9%.

As I just told about to continue, Lanvin generated a revenue of EUR 22.9 million in the first half. More importantly, the underlying performance showed several encouraging trends. On a like-for-like basis, sales across boutique stores remained positive despite store closures, while the wholesale revenue increased by 16%, supported by earlier Fall/Winter deliveries. The gross margin on Lanvin was a particular highlight, expanding by almost 390 basis points to 58.2%. This reflects a stronger sell-through and a better product lifecycle management. We also saw a meaningful improvement in contribution margin, with the loss reduced from EUR 12.3 million to EUR 6.2 million. In the second half, the focus is on converting this, improve the foundation into further growth. Now I will turn to Wolford. Wolford's revenue was EUR 31 million in the first half, down 6% year-over-year.