经济学人下载:熊彼特专栏--LVMH对决爱马仕(1)

Business 

商业版块

Schumpeter 

熊彼特专栏

The one that got away 

逃脱的品牌

Hermes seemed destined to become part of LVMH’s luxury empire. Not so fast 

爱马仕似乎注定要成为酩悦·轩尼诗-路易·威登集团奢侈帝国的一部分。但没那么快。

In the autumnof 2010 le tout Paris of business braced for the sad, if predictable, end of an era. After 173 years and six generations, Hermès, a purveyor of handbags to bankers and neckties to their husbands, was to become part of LVMH. The champagne-to-evening- gowns mastodon, home to Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior, among many others, had disclosed a stake of 17% and rising. Bernard Arnault, LVMH’s boss, with a knack for closing in on companies he admires, had only to pick off a few Hermes heirs ready to cash out. Bankers assumed the “wolf in cashmere” would take mere weeks to gobble up his elegant prey. 

2010年秋季的巴黎商业圈生意悲惨，不出所料地还见证了一个时代的落幕。爱马仕是一家为银行家们提供手袋，为丈夫们提供领带的公司。经过173年六代人的努力，这家公司准备加入酩悦·轩尼诗-路易·威登集团（LVMH)。LVMH这家奢侈品巨头业务广泛，从香槟到晚礼服，名下还拥有路易威登和迪奥等众多品牌，这家公司已经披露持有爱马仕17%甚至更多的股份。LVMH的老板贝尔纳·阿尔诺很擅长接近自己欣赏的公司，他只需要接近几位准备接手爱马仕的继承人即可。银行家们认为这匹“披着羊皮的狼”只需几周就能吞下优雅的猎物。

Fast forward to autumn 2020, and the various descendants of Thierry Hermes not only still control their family’s firm, they have beaten LVMH at its own game. One of their own, Axel Dumas, has reclaimed the helm from an outside manager. Mr Arnault has all but scarpered off the Hermes shareholder register and moved on to other targets, though not always successfully: on September 9th LVMH said it would not go ahead with a $17bn bid for Tiffany, an illustrious American jeweller. By just about any measure, Hermes has led the luxury pack, nearly trebling revenues between 2010 and 2019, to 6.9bn euros($7.7bn). Operating margins last year hit 34%, best in the industry. Even as it has been roiled by covid-19, its market capitalisation has risen this year to 78bn euros, while big competitors have shrunk. 

快进到2020年秋季，蒂埃里·爱马仕的后代们不仅仍然控制着家族企业，还在博弈中战胜了LVMH集团。其中一位后代阿克塞尔·杜马斯已经从一位外部经理手中夺回了掌舵权。阿尔诺几乎掉出了爱马仕的股东名册，他只好退而转向其他目标，尽管也不总是成功：9月9日，LVMH集团表示，不会继续以170亿美元的价格收购美国著名珠宝商蒂芙尼。不管以任何标准衡量，爱马仕都算是奢侈品品牌的领跑者，在2010年至2019年之间，其收入几乎翻了两番，达到69亿欧元（合77亿美元）。去年的营业利润率达到了34％，在业内名列前茅。即使受到疫情困扰，爱马仕的市值今年仍增至780亿欧元，而大型竞争对手却缩水了。