Severed because of other focus
Group Kering, formerly known as PPR, put Fnac on the stock exchange as it wanted to focus on luxury. The fact
that Fnac had largely missed the digital revolution, taking a huge hit on book
and music sales, did not help its cause and led to severe problems.
To move Fnac out of the group, it was
given a separate stock exchange listing in June. In order to pull in
additional sales, the focus was expanded, adding toys and small household
appliances. For this move, the chain was rewarded: its share closed at 23.7 euro yesterday, after dangling around 20 euro for
a long time.
Negative trend has not been reversed yet
Nevertheless, Fnac is still in a
slump that has not been reversed yet: its third quarter turnover dropped 5.9 % to 844
million euro. The drop in its home market, France, was slightly lower, at 4.7
%. The competition dropped even more though, meaning Fnac managed to capture
market share.
The chain is currently working on expanding the franchise section of its store network. By the end of September, it had 19 franchise
stores, on a total of 174 stores.
(Translated by Gary Peeters)
