Christian Lacroix New Owner Hits a Slump: Profits Plunge by 34%

Sociedad Textil Lonia puts on the brakes. After stagnating in 2023, the Spanish company, owner of the Purificación García brand and, since the beginning of the year, also of Christian Lacroix, as well as licensee of CH Carolina Herrera, closed the last fiscal year (ending February 2025) with a drop in sales and profit. This slowdown was already evident in February this year, when Puig, owner of 25% of the group, published its annual report, in which the company’s weak results were revealed.

According to the group’s consolidated accounts, which have just been filed with the Spanish Mercantile Registry, Sociedad Textil Lonia closed its last full year with a turnover of €410.4 million, 4.5% less than in the previous year. Despite the fall, the Spanish group, founded in 1997 and controlled by the Domínguez family, has managed to hold on to the €400 million turnover barrier, a milestone reached by the end of the 2022 financial year.

That year, the Galician group closed the fiscal year with a turnover of €431.9 million, surpassing, even, the turnover prior to the outbreak of the pandemic. In 2019, Sociedad Textil Lonia’s sales were €376 million, falling to 209 million in 2020, in the midst of the health crisis.

The company has reduced its profits to €36.6 million 

The group’s net income also fell to €36.3 million, 34% less than a year ago, while operating income contracted even more, by 47.6%, to €38.4 million at the end of the year.

The company’s total debt amounted to €109.6 million, around €22 million euros than a year ago. A large part of Textil Lonia’s liabilities corresponds to short-term debts, €94.5 million, in line with the figure for a year ago. The group, however, has considerably reduced its long-term debt, to €15 million, compared with €35.7 million a year earlier.

By geographical markets, the group’s sales are mainly concentrated in the Americas, where the company generated a turnover of €213.9 million, 2.7% less than the previous year. In Spain, the company’s second largest market, turnover amounted to €122.3 million, another 6% lower than in 2023.

America and Spain are the main markets of the group in which Puig has a stake

The fall has been generalized in all the markets in which Sociedad Textil Lonia operates: in Asia, the company has reduced its turnover by 12.3%, to €40.7 million; in Africa the fall has been 15%, to €731,867 and in the rest of Europe sales have remained flat at around €32.5 million.

The group, which does not mention any reason in the management report for the year to explain the drop in sales, closed the year analyzed in the accounts with the acquisition of 100% of the emblematic French firm Christian Lacroix. The transaction, announced in January of this year, i.e. just under a month before the end of its fiscal year, represents an expansion of the group’s brand portfolio.

“This firm represents a unique legacy of emotion, beauty and creativity,“ says the group in the text, which through the purchase plans to “ add to its project the legacy and creative universe of the brand, strengthening its commitment to high fashion”.

What the Spanish company has slowed down is the adjustment of its commercial park, for which it had been closing part of its physical stores. At the end of the last fiscal year, Sociedad Textil Lonia operated a total of 583 stores, just three less than the previous year. Of these, 354 are outlets in department stores, 132 are company-owned stores and another 100 are franchises.

Looking ahead to the new fiscal year, the company has only explained that it will continue to “focus on the strategy of consolidating the brands within the most exclusive segment of the market.“ “With a long-term vision focused on generating value, we will prioritize sustainable growth, strengthening our position in the market and ensuring the quality and exclusivity of our products,“ explains Textil Lonia.