Interparfums ends 2012 with 12% spike in sales

The French perfumes group Interparfums ended 2012 with a 12% rise in sales to a record €445 million. The company is cash rich from the €181m indemnity paid by Burberry to end its licence contract and will use its net funds of around €200m by mid 2013 to launch an accelerated strategy of acquisitions.

Final figures will be available in early March but the company expects to report an operating margin of over 12% with promotional spending of about €98m.

The 2012 results hinged on market dynamism in the US and Asia and were helped by the very strong growth in sales of the Montblanc, Jimmy Choo and Boucheron perfumes with rises of 51%, 36% and 96% respectively. These sales alone added more than €100m to the total after only two years of development.

In terms of brands, Burberry sales generated €221.7m (+6%) with Lanvin in second place with €60.4 million, topping the €60m mark for the first time. Market growth was varied with North America posting 29%, the Middle East 17%, Africa 20% and Asia 12% but Latin America was down 4% on the year earlier. Sales in Eastern Europe rose 10% but achieved only 5% in western Europe. Sales inside France struggled to achieve 4%.

Philippe Benacin, the groups president, said acquisitions policy would focus on perfume, cosmetics and fashion brands but declined to go into detail, speaking only of "exploratory discussions".