Safilo, the parent company of Smith Optics, is losing another big licensing agreement.
The company confirmed Monday that Dior will not renew its licensing deal with Safilo when the current pact expires at the end of 2020.
Dior accounted for 13% of Safilo sales in 2018.
Safilo has struggled since losing another key licensing customer, Gucci, and is putting more emphasis on growing its owned brands such as Smith, in addition to securing new licenses for brands such as Levi’s, Missoni and David Beckham. The company has gone through several restructurings to reduce costs.
Safilo still has some big brand names in its licensing portfolio, including Kate Spade, Marc Jacobs and Fendi.
Despite the coming loss of Dior, Safilo remains on track with its current business plan which could help the company absorb the Dior change, executives said.
“We remain fully committed to our 2020 Group Business Plan, aiming to reignite sales growth focusing on key geographies, brands and channels while recovering operating performance enabled by our cost reduction program,” Safilo CEO Angelo Trocchia said in a statement. “We are on track with our goals and will further accelerate our journey towards restoring an adequate and sustainable level of profitability by 2020 which will enable us to effectively manage this license exit.”
As part of its restructuring plan, Safilo sold its underperforming Solstice retail chain in the U.S. to Fairway LLC to focus on the wholesale business. Safilo confirmed today that that deal has closed.
