Since the takeover of the former Ahlers brands by the R.Brand Group, which also owns the Modepark Röther retail chain, there has been speculation about the future of the Baldessarini, Pioneer and Pierre Cardin labels.
A good nine months after the takeover, managing director Raphael Heinold clears up the rumors because the brand portfolio remains intact, the license agreements for Pierre Cardin have been extended for the next five years and the goal is clearly to get all brands back on track .
Heinold told FashionUnited in an interview which steps have already been taken, what he is particularly focusing on and what is on the agenda for the coming years. The managing director also spoke about the relationship with the new owner, the reactions of the industry and the impact of the retail bankruptcies on the group, which is currently being rebuilt.
After the takeover of the Ahlers brands, there was a lot of speculation about whether you would hold on to all brands in the portfolio. How did you ultimately decide to do exactly that?
We have a wonderful scenario that we are very well positioned in the mainstream with Pioneer. We are in the middle, I always call it the “bridge market” towards premium with Pierre Cardin and in the classic premium market with Baldessarini. All three brands have potential. We don’t have the million-dollar budget that a boss invests in marketing, but we want to be more present and represented on the market in the future.
And yet Baldessarini is a bit out of the ordinary – not least visually…
Baldessarini is clearly the fashion leader of the R.Brands Group. We are consciously sticking to this point and want to push it further. A bit more stylish, with more styling elements than you would find from some well-known brands in the segment, but still, and this is an important topic, sellable. We don’t want to become so special and extravagant that it can no longer be sold; we don’t want to die in beauty.
Is there a focus topic that you are currently pushing hard?
We will focus much more on the product again. The product must clearly become the focus of consumers. In the past, we focused a lot on the trading partners and conditions, which are of course just as important, but we lost sight of who actually buys the goods. It’s not rocket science, but it wasn’t important enough in the group before. And that is clearly being corrected. We will also pay a lot of attention to what is happening in the market, where exactly the positioning we are looking for is, and how consumers behave.
Keyword: consumers, how should they experience the R.Brand Group brands in the future?
We want consumers to love our products and all our brands again across the board. We want to deliver good clothing for a good price-performance ratio and good quality, that’s clear, but this desirability is a big issue that wasn’t always there. We certainly have to work harder on this. We want to become part of our customers’ lifestyle, part of their lives. All brands will develop significantly more towards the “Total Look”. This is already the case with Baldessarini. There the collection has always come from the concept of the whole outfit. This is no longer the case with the other brands and we will push this much more strongly again.
You just spoke about good value for money. Not an easy task at a time when many clothing retailers had to raise their prices due to inflation.
I wouldn’t sign that for our brands. Nothing goes up here at all. To some extent the opposite is the case. Key price areas in which we were once very successful are being strengthened again. At Baldessarini, for example, we look very closely at where the limit really lies, while at Pierre Cardin we have corrected the price level. And this is not for its own sake, but simply because we believe that consumers cannot and will not continue on this journey, which is “more and more expensive and expensive”, indefinitely.
This order season, starting with Pitti Uomo in Florence, you had the chance to present yourself for the first time under the umbrella of the newly formed R.Brand Group. What is your conclusion so far?
We’ve already been talked dead to a certain extent, but now everyone can see what’s happening at the R.Brand Group and the first reactions have confirmed our intentions and the potential of the brands. We are in a very, very good environment, with the owners who are very trusting, very realistic and know what kind of company they have bought. They give us all the time in the world to develop things. This is significantly better than a private equity firm that simply says, “Next year we want to take cash out of the business again.” Not at all. The money will stay in the group and be used for investments. We can expand the company, develop ideas and are currently under no pressure. As management, we almost put the pressure on ourselves because we want to deliver.
Nevertheless, the reactions to the new owner were not all positive.
There are a few voices that are not entirely happy about our affiliation with another competitor; that concerns some people. That’s precisely why it’s important that we talk about it openly. We will create an offer with our brands that allows retailers to earn good money. That’s what counts for us, who we belong to is not the top priority.
You just said that you as management want to “deliver”. What does this mean specifically for the R.Brand Group?
The ultimate goal for the group must be sustainable growth. And sustainable growth because we had growth before and were still insolvent last year. You may not believe it, but the group achieved a turnover of almost 200 million euros and then still went bankrupt due to the high costs. This can be managed much better. This is always easy to say afterwards, but that is our clear goal.
Can you also specify the goal in numbers?
We aim to achieve the 2019 sales of around 175 to 180 million in the next three years, but clearly with an EBIT margin of seven percent. The company must become profitable. 2024 is intentionally a year in which we aim for a black zero and prepare to grow in 2025, 2026.
So 2024 won’t be the year of big growth?
No, we are very realistic about 2024. Of course, we got a real beating in the Spring-Summer order round, which took place in the middle of the bankruptcy. In the fall and winter one or two will definitely come back, but don’t buy right away. We are already dealing with a certain loss of trust.
The group has previously presented a new direction in leaps and bounds, sometimes every six months. That won’t be the case in the future, but we have to prove it first. We now have to show and prove that you can rely on our price ranges, the level of fashion and the conception. Paper is patient, now we have to deliver, that’s completely normal. If I were a trader, I would probably be just as cautious and hesitant.
Trust doesn’t come from nothing. What has changed within the company since the takeover?
We had the opportunity to cut deeper into the organization over the summer. This is bitter for everyone involved, but we have consciously made relatively deep cuts so that we can quickly reach the point of operating the brands profitably.
For us it’s about a really good business with a solid structure. We are currently focusing on the next three years, but of course we want to continue to grow after that. And of course we have endless expansion opportunities in Europe. If we have done our homework here, we will also tackle such topics. But one thing at a time and a little more strategically than in the past.
Are there already concrete expansion plans?
In the past, some things were approached very opportunistically. Someone from Lithuania, for example, came running to the trade fair and said “oh, I would write an order” and then an order was written. This isn’t a performance for me. If I want this market, then we want to approach it strategically in the future and then do it correctly. With suitable partners and those markets in which we may also see a future.
In September, Röther Group’s e-commerce activities, including R.Brand Group brands, were taken offline. Will that change again in the future?
Omnichannel is certainly on the agenda. Must. Without it, no company can be successful today – and yet we will do it very carefully. We were highly deficient in this area, so we initially put the issue on hold. That was the right decision and we still have to address the issue again, but not in 2024. This needs to be properly prepared and it will be an issue for 2025.
You’re already looking to the future, but the current retail landscape with the insolvencies of companies like Galeria and the KaDeWe Group probably doesn’t particularly favor your plans, does it?
Galeria hits us hard, especially with Pioneer and Pierre Cardin. The KaDeWe group also meets us with Baldessarini. We are involved in this because of course we need a retail landscape and a department store landscape. I am convinced that it will continue, but not to the same extent.
Does all of this affect us brutally? Naturally. And it hits us at a time when we ourselves are not yet 100 percent prepared. We’re still busy consolidating the company ourselves, so it’s another blow – but we’ll get through it. We won’t collapse tomorrow because of this.