Fashion Top 100 Index at all-time high

The FashionUnited Top 100 Index, the international fashion industry benchmark index, has crossed the 1500 point mark in the second quarter of the year, an increase by 140 points since January 1. Since its first trading session in July 2010, the FashionUnited Top 100 Index has climbed from 1000 points to 1503 points at the close of the second quarter 2013. Its total index value (market capitalisation) is now over 900 billion US dollar.

Among the top performers in the last six months are Japanese clothing and accessories brand United Arrows LTD (+123 percent), Fifth & Pacific Companies Inc. (formerly Liz Claiborne; +90 percent), Japan’s fashion retailer Fast Retailing (+89 percent), Australian surf- and boardsport brand Quiksilver Inc (+73 percent), British clothing retailer Ted Baker (+72 percent), British fashion and beauty online retailer Asos (+70 percent), US fashion retailer Express Inc. (+63 percent), US brand management company Iconix Brand Group Inc. (+55 percent), US women’s retailer Bebe Stores (+51 percent) and Italian luxury brand Brunello Cucinelli (+51 percent).

Chinese apparel companies make a strong entry
Three Chinese companies are new entrants to the Index: Bosideng, the country’s largest down apparel company; Metersbonwe, leader in casualwear, and Semir, one of China’s top ten clothing brands. Due to takeovers, two companies fell out of the Index: K-swiss (by E.Land World) and Warnaco (by PVH).

Australian surfwear brand Billabong also fell out of the Index because its market capitalisation became too low. The company has been suffering from unsuccessful acquisitions and is still waiting for the right takeover bidding. Once worth over 4 billion US dollar in 2007, Billabong’s value is currently estimated at around 100 million US dollar. The share has dropped by almost 60 percent in the last 6 months and therefore has been replaced in the FashionUnited Top100 Index.

Brazilian companies among the bottom ten
Among the top decliners in the last six months were all four Brazilian companies listed in the Index; with declines by -34 percent, -29 percent, -20 percent and -13 percent, respectively, Cia Hering, Marisa Lojas, Lojas Renner and Restoque had a tough time staying in the FashionUnited Top 100 Index and are now among the bottom ten. Considering the decline of the Brazilian real versus the US dollar (by almost 4 cents, from 0.48 to 0.44 US dollar per 1 Brazilian real), the net value is affected even more; the combined market capitalization of all four companies dropped by approximately 30 percent from 11.7 to 8 billion US dollar.

With -39 percent, Swiss apparel company Charles Vögele showed the strongest decline in the last six months, followed by Cia Hering (see above), Austrian hosiery and lingerie maker Wolford (-29 percent), Marisa Lojas (see above), Pantaloon Retail (India) Limited (-24 percent), Lojas Renner (see above), Bombay Rayon Fashions Limited and the Mulberry Group (both with -19 percent), US menswear retailer JoS A. Bank Clothiers (-13 percent) and Restoque (see above).

The FashionUnited Top 100 Index is a capitalisation-weighted index, gathering some of the world largest stock listed apparel companies. All listed companies specialise in the sale of clothing, whether in physical retail stores, wholesale or by e-commerce. They do not necessarily have to be the world largest ones, but the main stock listed firms located in those countries represented in the index with their own weighting based on market capitalisation, which is calculated June 30th of each year.

End of press release