The encyclopedia · Finance & Accounting · Strategic decision · 2025–2026
Fosun built a luxury group around Lanvin — it lost €238M in 2025
Every brand shrank in H1 2025 — Lanvin itself down 42%. Full-year revenue fell to €240.5m and the loss widened to €238.5m, bridged by Fosun loans.
Lanvin Group · Fosun · 2026-04-30
What happened
Lanvin Group is the New York-listed holding through which China's Fosun assembled a portfolio of European fashion houses — the Paris couture house Lanvin, shoemaker Sergio Rossi, Austrian hosiery maker Wolford and American knitwear label St. John. In the first half of 2025 every one of them shrank: group revenue fell 22% to €133 million, and adjusted EBITDA was negative €52 million, worse than the negative €42 million of a year earlier.
The brand-level detail shows it was not one weak link: Lanvin itself fell 42%, Sergio Rossi 25%, Wolford 23%, Caruso 11%. Only St. John was broadly flat. Gross margin slipped from 58% to 54%, and the cost programme — G&A cut 35% at St. John, 27% at Wolford, 25% at Sergio Rossi since 2023 — could not outrun the revenue decline.
The full-year results, reported at the end of April 2026, were worse: revenue of €240.5 million, down 17.6% from €291.9 million in 2024, and a net loss of €238.49 million — widened from €165.26 million the year before, a loss of €2.04 per share.
What keeps the group trading is its shareholder: SEC filings for the period show unsecured working-capital loans from Fosun International and its subsidiaries. New management arrived — executive president Andy Lew in January 2025, new creative directors at the brands — and the holding called 2025 'a year of disciplined execution'. The market's verdict is in the numbers.
Why it happened
- Fosun bought a set of brands that were each already losing relevance and grouped them — the holding structure combined the declines instead of curing them
- With every brand shrinking at once, the group's central costs had no growing revenue to absorb them: adjusted EBITDA stayed deeply negative through every quarter measured
- Cost cuts of 25–35% on G&A still left contribution profit negative — the problem is demand for the brands, not the size of the head office
- Survival now depends on shareholder loans rather than cash flow, which means the group's future is a Fosun decision, not a business result
The lesson
Buying several fading brands and listing them as a 'luxury group' does not create the demand they lost — the losses add faster than the synergies, and only the parent's loans keep the lights on.
Aftermath
Lanvin Group entered 2026 still loss-making, with Fosun's working-capital loans bridging the cash gap and a second European headquarters set up to run the portfolio closer. Caruso was sold off in 2026. The stated plan remains 'transformation': new designers, a streamlined network, and the hope that Lanvin's name outlasts its accounts.
Sources
- Fosun — Lanvin Group reports H1 2025 revenue of €133 million, every brand declining (29 Aug 2025)
- MarketScreener — Lanvin Group FY2025 results: revenue €240.5m, net loss €238.49m (30 Apr 2026)
- SEC — Lanvin Group Holdings 6-K: unsecured working-capital loans from Fosun International (9 Sep 2025)
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