After Italian department store chain OVS acquired onerous store chain Charles Vögele late last year, it now announced it will speed up the transformation into OVS stores.
By the end of 2018
The Swiss fashion company struggled for years, before OVS, alongside Retail Sempione and two other companies, decided to acquire it and transform the stores into its own OVS stores. CEO Stefan Beraldo has now revealed the process to turn the Charles Vögele stores into OVS stores will pick up pace.
Up until now, OVS has only turned eleven Slovenian stores into its own stores and it will do similarly with 150 Swiss stores starting this summer. By the end of 2018, the entire process should be finished, including the stores in Austria and Hungary. The goal is to increase OVS’ turnover to surpass two billion euros, in part thanks to an international expansion. Beraldo expects this to be possible and boasts that the company is currently growing faster than its competitors H&M and Inditex.
Things will not change for the Belgian market (nor the German or Dutch markets) as OVS did not acquire these Charles Vögele divisions, and stores here have already been sold to other companies. For instance, Bel&Bo has acquired about a third of the Belgian Charles Vögele stores.