The French textile group SMCP, which includes the brands Sandro, Maje, Claudie Pierlot and de Fursac, can breathe a sigh of relief: the 15.5 percent of his capital, which in 2021 had illegally ceded by its insolent Chinese shareholder, has now been returned to the Luxembourg Holding Society, which she had previously held.
SMCP has not had it easy in recent years. Like many other companies in the premium sector, the fashion group, which is active in the so-called affordable luxury segment, suffered from the covid crisis, inflation, which the household budgets burdened, and the raw material prices increased by the war in Ukraine.
Background of a legal dispute
In addition to these economic effects, the listed French group also had to struggle with a homemade capital confusion. An important step to solve this problem took place on Monday.
2017, at the time of the IPO of SMCP, was the Chinese mixed group Shandong Ruyi via an investment company registered in Luxembourg, European Topsoho (ETS), the majority shareholder. The latter company, highly indebted and with a participation of 53 percent, got late in payment in 2021 and lost most of the capital to its creditors: inside, which are summarized in the glass unit. Glass received 29 percent of the capital, while 8 percent remained with ETS.
However, European Topsoho had previously sold a participation of around 16 percent to the daughter of the Shandong-Ruyi founder, Chenran Qiu, which was housed in the Trust Dynamic Treasure Group (DTG) in the British Virgin Islands. The transaction was concluded for one euro, “although its market value was over 80 million euros at the time,” emphasized the analyst: inside of Oddo in July 2024 in a message. Glas had tried to regain this part of the capital for several years and considered the assignment procedure illegal. Therefore, Glas initiated court proceedings and in 2024 obtained a positive decision by the British judiciary, since DTG is a society of British law. In this decision, the return of the ETS shares to Luxembourg was ordered.
However, the shares that have now been returned had been on a bank account in Singapore, which had involved the judiciary of the Asian city state, explained a source of the AFP that was familiar with the matter.
New perspectives
On Monday, the group announced that “the 15.5 percent participation to SMCP, which was assigned to the Dynamic Treasure Group in 2021, was returned to European Topsoho on August 11, 2025”.
“The return of this participation clarifies the shareholder structure of SMCP. The group continues to concentrate on the implementation of its strategy for profitable growth, based on the attractiveness of its brands, its operational flexibility and his efforts to control costs,” the company explained after it was released from this Damocles sword.
From now on, glass can position herself as a creditor to get the 15.5 percent of the shares back. In July 2024, Oddo’s analysts wrote that a “possible public takeover offer from Glas” was one of the possible options as “as soon as the shares were attributed and confiscated”. Due to the return, glass would meet the conditions for the exceeding of the share threshold of 30 percent, since the company already holds 29 percent of SMCP’s shares. The creditors: inside could also sell their shares to get the borrowed money back.
In any case, new perspectives for the SMCP group, which the crisis in the prêt-à-porter area have so far been able to withstand well. Last year, the experts found that, despite an unfavorable macroeconomic environment in 2023, the group found that the group was able to achieve good results and even generated cash and also has a plan for 2026 that will enable him to survive the crisis that hits the sector “.
In the first half of 2025, sales increased by 2.7 percent and increased in all regions except Asia. Above all, SMCP returned to the profit zone with a net profit of eleven million euros. In the first half of 2024, the group had had a loss of 27.7 million euros.
SMCP currently has 1,642 sales outlets worldwide.
This article was used with digital tools translated.
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