LVMH to take over another high-end tannery
09/05/2012
Business commentators have suggested that LVMH, owner of luxury leathergoods brands such as Louis Vuitton, Loewe and Céline, views the acquisition of Tanneries Roux as a way of gaining greater control of its own leather supply chain.
Founded in 1803, Tanneries Roux has 120 employees and had a turnover of around EUR 20 million last year. It is based in the town of Romans Sur Isère in south-east France, a traditional hub of leather, leathergoods and high-end footwear manufacture in France, albeit with far fewer producers now than in years past. In 2011, Louis Vuitton opened a workshop in the area.
Tanneries Roux has focused largely on the luxury leathergoods market until now, although it also supplies leather to high-end footwear brands, to watch brands for straps and for luxury cars, yachts and aeroplanes. It works with French raw material and says its production set-up is up to date, enabling a skilled workforce to produce premium-quality in leather completely in line with European environmental legislation.
For LVMH, the move follows a series of steps the group has taken recently to make the most of the current success of the luxury leathergoods sector. In 2009 it set up a joint venture with Tannerie Masure in Estaimburg in Belgium to make vegetable-tanned leather for some of its handbags. Other developments have included taking in October 2011 a controlling stake of Heng Long, a Singapore-based tannery producing crocodile leather. In December, the group relaunched Moynat, a famous Paris leathergoods brand, world famous for its leather trunks, but which had closed its store in the Place du Théâtre Français in the French capital in 1976. LVMH has now opened a new Moynat boutique in the Rue Saint Honoré.
On the acquisition of Tanneries Roux, Paris-based daily Le Figaro quoted an unnamed representative of LVMH senior management as saying: “This acquisition is in keeping with the group’s strategy to gain upstream value for our know-how.”
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