Christofle cycled through CEOs for a decade — the losses kept growing

Christofle has changed its theory of itself every few years, and the chief executive with it. Thierry Oriez ran the house from 2007 to 2018; Nathalie Remy from 2018 to 2021; Émilie Viargues took over in 2022 and announced her departure in March 2025. In April 2025 Hamdi Chatti, until then president of Louis Vuitton's watches and jewellery division, arrived — the fourth attempt in a decade at turning a two-century-old silversmith profitable.

The numbers underneath the rotation moved in one direction. In 2013 Christofle made €80 million of revenue and lost €3 million. In 2023 it made €70 million and lost €11 million: smaller and bleeding faster, after a decade of revivals, modernisations and luxury repositionings. Wedding registries, the pillar on which the house was built, have been shrinking since 2013 as tableware became cheaper and interchangeable.

The survival is an owner's decision, not a market verdict. The Chalhoub Group, the Dubai luxury distributor, has owned Christofle since 2012 and has financed its deficits for twelve years, alongside a €10 million state-guaranteed loan in 2020. The house's digital engagement is a recorded 14.5% against an industry average of 2% — and none of it has converted into sales. Attention, it turns out, is not demand.

The shape of the case is leadership churn as a symptom of strategic churn: each CEO arrived with a different answer to the question of what Christofle is, and none stayed long enough to find out whether their answer worked.