奢侈品企业失去光环

Chinese athletes have been collecting plenty of gold in London. But their countrymen seem to be losing a taste for it. The latest sign of a Chinese luxury goods slowdown came from Richemont, the high end jeweller, yesterday.
中国的运动员们在伦敦奥运会上已经收获了许多金牌，但他们的同胞对黄金的兴趣似乎却正在消减。瑞士高档珠宝商历峰集团(Richemont)昨日发布的公告，为中国奢侈品市场增长放缓提供了最新证据。

Its terse statement was impressive on the surface – operating profits will rise between 20 and 40 per cent this year. But much of that is due to currency moves, and the range of potential profit growth suggests that Richemont is not confident enough to be more precise. And growth is slowing – sales before currency changes grew 20 per cent in April, but only 13 per cent across the April-June quarter.
该集团的业绩简报粗看之下似乎令人印象深刻——在截至9月30日的六个月中，公司营业利润较上年同期增幅预计在20%至40%之间，但其中大部分将来自汇率波动。另外，公布预估的浮动区间比较大，表明历峰集团没有信心给出更精确的估计。公司的业绩增长也在放缓，4月份未经汇率调整的销售额同比增长20%，而4月至7月销售额同比增幅仅为13%。

Richemont is not alone. All kinds of luxury goods companies have been throwing their arms up in horror at the prospect of a Chinese consumer slowdown. On Friday, Hugo Boss said shoppers in the country were holding back and that Asian revenues in the second quarter were only 4 per cent up on the same period last year. The previous week LVMH said that first-half organic growth in its watches and jewellery business was just 4 per cent. Last month Burberry said that first-quarter sales growth had slowed from 30 per cent to 11 per cent.
历峰集团并非唯一出现增长放缓的奢侈品企业。中国消费支出增长放缓的前景，令各类奢侈品企业惊慌失措。雨果博斯(Hugo Boss)上周五表示，中国消费者正在控制支出，第二季度来自亚洲地区的收入较上年同期仅增长4%。此前一周路威酩轩(LVMH)宣布，今年上半年其腕表及珠宝业务有机增长率(organic growth)仅为4%。上月博柏利(Burberry)则表示，公司第一季度销售额增长放缓，同比增长率由前一季度的30%降至11%。

Luxury goods shares have been relatively resilient. The MSCI World Textile, Apparel and Luxury Goods index has been flat since the start of June, albeit after a 16 per cent fall in May. But some companies look vulnerable. In particular, some of the high end clothing companies look expensive. Prada, which released good results yesterday, trades on 23 times forecast earnings, while Burberry is on 18 and Hugo Boss is on 16. Jewellery and watch groups such as Richemont, Tiffany and Swatch are more reasonably rated on around 14. Some discount is justified, as big ticket items are more likely than clothes to suffer. But the gap looks too wide.
奢侈品公司股价则表现得较为坚挺。进入6月以来，摩根士丹利资本国际公司全球纺织、服装和奢侈品指数(MSCI World Textile, Apparel and Luxury Goods Index)一直保持平稳，尽管该指数5月累计下跌了16%。但目前一些公司的股价似乎缺乏支撑，特别是一些高档服装企业股价似乎偏高。目前普拉达(Prada)的预期市盈率为23倍（该公司昨日发布了不错的业绩公告），博柏利为18倍，雨果博斯则为16倍。历峰集团、蒂芙尼(Tiffany)和斯沃琪(Swatch)等珠宝及腕表企业的预期市盈率更为合理，在14倍左右。相对于服装而言，此类高价单品更容易受到消费者支出放缓的影响，因此，这些珠宝及腕表企业的市盈率较低是理所当然的。但两类奢侈品企业的市盈率差距似乎太大了。