SMCP is the parent company of fashion brands Sandro, Maje & Claudie Pierlot. Recently SMCP entered into exclusive talks to acquire French accessible luxury menswear brand De Fursac. The move would strengthen the group’s foothold in the men’s accessible luxury market where it is already making progress with Sandro menswear. The deal is expected to close during the third quarter of this year.

“With De Fursac in our Group, we have a unique opportunity to accelerate our strategy, by tapping into a new segment in the fast-growing men’s accessible luxury market. We look forward to working with the talented teams of De Fursac, on our journey to become the global leader of accessible luxury and to continuing to create value for our shareholders,” said SMCP chief executive Daniel Lalonde.

In the second quarter of 2018 SMCP Group achieved sales up +15.2% at €241.3m in the second quarter of 2018, and had upped its sales guidance for the full year.

The French business said like-for-like sales in the first half were up +5.8% which was driven by the successful implementation of it bricks and mortar and digital strategies. Online sales reached 14.3% of total sales in the half. International growth was up +26.5% and now contributes 64% of total group sales and the business has been continuing with its ambitious retail expansion with net 114 openings in the past 12 months of which 48 were opened in Q2 of this year.

As a result of the strong performance the business upgraded its sales growth guidance for the full financial year from 11%-13% to 13%-plus. It also confirmed its EBITDA margin guidance of around 17%.