What: During the first quarter of 2022, total revenues increased by 18%, while Ebitda and profits fell comparing to Q1 2021.

Why it is important: Falabella generated profits of 92 million dollars between January 1 and March 31. This figure is 47% lower than in the same period last year.

The Ebitda reached 371 million, which represents for the Chilean giant a slowdown of 17% compared to the same period of 2021. The fall is mainly explained by an increase in administrative and sales expenses.

The company's consolidated revenue rose 18% reaching 3719 million dollars, thanks to the home improvement, banking business and department store branches. Falabella sales reached about 4000 million dollars and a growth of 15.8%, compared to the first quarter of 2021.

Falabella's Q1 results

What: When presenting its 2021 Sustainability Report, corporate general manager of Falabella stated that it was a year of great achievements that will remain marked in the history of Falabella Retail as a reflection of its leadership in the digital-physical world, with capacity for innovation and resilience.

Why is it important: The report evidences the fulfillment of the company's goals in Chile, Colombia and Peru. The high standards of customer satisfaction were achieved and various milestones were achieved regarding the optimization of the shopping experience. The foregoing was achieved by focusing on the company's sustainability pillars: Innovation in the business model, +Green, Local Development, and Agile Talent and Culture.

Falabella's 2021 Sustainability Report 

What: Galeries Lafayette will pamper French creativity this summer through an ambitious program of events combining music, fashion and NFT.

Why is it important: Galeries Lafayette on boulevard Haussmann opens its doors of the panoramic terrace to welcome from July 5 to August 31 a program combining cinema at the end of the day music with a selection of leading artists and young labels from the French scene.

This free festival, open to registration on the department store's website, will not forget to succumb to the vogue for NFTs since an exhibition of crypto art curated by Obvious, a French collective of artists and researchers using algorithms as pioneers of artificial intelligence to create works of art and whose work was highlighted in 2018 with the sale of one of their paintings, the first of its kind, at Christie's New York, will be held from July 6 to 10.

This will also highlight a selection of French labels, emerging or iconic. Nodaleto, a French house of shoes made in Venice founded in 2019, Casablanca a contemporary fashion house dedicated to protecting and promoting a holistic approach to design and craftsmanship, D 'Estrëe Parisian brand created in 2016, the Martin Martin label which positions itself on responsible fashion, the Magali Pascal brand presented exclusively at the Creative Gallery on the 2nd floor of the department store while, produced on the occasion of this event French Touch, the Galeries Lafayette brand will unveil a limited edition short wardrobe produced entirely in Troyes, the historic cradle of the French textile industry.

More Details on Galeries Lafayette Celebrating the French Touch

Galeries Lafayette celebrates the French touch 

What: CEO of Manor signed an agreement with Federal Councilor Simonetta Sommaruga and 27 other leaders of companies and associations in the food sector to fight against food waste.

Why is it important: The objective is to halve avoidable food losses by 2030. The signatories undertake to put concrete measures to limit their waste and report annually on the progress made. This agreement is part of the action plan against food waste adopted by the Federal Council on April 6, 2022.

Manor's Confederation and food sector are committed against food waste

What: The expansion of Breuningerland in Ludwigsburg has been stopped. The Mannheim Administrative Court ruled in favour of the municipalities of Bietigheim-Bissingen and Tamm, which are against the plans.

Why it is important: Breuninger and the city of Ludwigsburg agreed on a compromise solution to expand the area by 2500 sqm instead of 10,000 sqm originally planned.

NEWS Court overturns Breuninger's extension in Ludwigsburg

What: The Mall Group received the Community Forest Support Award for the year 2022.

Why is it important: The Mall Group as Thailand's first Green Retail Received the Community Forest Support Award for the year 2022 by the Royal Forest Department, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. On the occasion of National Community Forest Day, May 24, 2022.

The Mall Group received the Community Forest Support Award 

What: The Integrated Report covers the period January 1 to December 31, 2021 and discloses the company's performance and actions on how it affects the commercial, social and environmental context within the area in which it operates.

Why it is important: With this year's theme of 'Together, We Recover,' SM Investments has further communicated the value of sustainable business practices across its portfolio as it features stories on innovation and community support amid the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Through this report, we highlight the huge impact SM's businesses and our wide ecosystem had last year – in financial performance, vaccination rollout, economic recovery, disaster response and resilience and in addressing climate change," the company declares. As restrictions on mobility continue to ease, SM has also expressed optimism on the rebound of the country's economy and the gradual reopening of the Philippines under the 'new normal.'

SM Retail contributes 17% of the company income. Compared to 2020, SM Retail revenues grew 2% and the net income grew by 133% in 2021. In 2021, despite the challenging conditions of the pandemic, two department stores were opened in SM City Daet, Camarines Norte, and SM City Grand Central in Caloocan. The report also states that in 2021, the Call to Deliver service accounted for 10% of total non-grocery sales.

SM Investments launches second integrated report

SM Financial Supplement

What: El Palacio de Hierro and TPG Architects have won Gold at the Shop Awards for Perisur's remodeling.

Why is it important: The Design Awards celebrate achievements in areas such as new store design, renovations, fixtures, visual presentation projects, and in-store communications. Entries are cited for excellence in design, originality in the use of space and materials, and quality of concept execution.

El Palacio de Hierro and TPG Architecture won gold in the department store category for their new remodel in the Perisur flagship store.

TPG has been entrusted with creating thoughtful designs for Palacio locations over the years. The Perisur flagship captures the aesthetic and timeframe of two historical moments: the 1940s residential development of Los Jardines del Pedregal de San Angel, and the 1968 Olympics held in Mexico City.

El Palacio de Hierro won Gold at Shop Awards

What: After Galeries Lafayette's decision to switch 11 of its provincial units to affiliation, the Société des grands Magasins (SGM) officially became the owner of seven of these addresses.

Why is it important: SGM now operates the points of sale in Angers, Dijon, Grenoble, Le Mans, Limoges, Orléans and Reims, which it continues to run under the Galeries Lafayette brand as part of a partnership.

Launched in 2018 by the Merlin family as a specialist in city center commercial real estate, SGM has acquired a total of around 80,000 square meters of retail space to be revitalized.

Renovation work will be carried out on each site in the coming months, while the assortment will evolve: SGM wants to develop a complementary offer in the catering, leisure, culture, or the world of children. Fashion will therefore be less central in these points of sale.

The installation of pop-up stores and ephemeral offers will also be multiplied, while new third-party brands will be set up on the walls.

To increase the traffic of these stores, the property intends to host events, by opening the associative and cultural environment, offering services, leisure, and meeting spaces. But also, by developing alternative offers such as second hand.

SGM takes over seven Galeries Lafayette stores (French)

What: Manor supports Basel Museum Night, in collaboration with Novartis, Basel Cantonal Bank and Helvetia Insurance.

Why is it important: After two years, this popular public event can take place again: on May 20 from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m., 37 museums and cultural institutions in Basel, the border region of Saint-Louis and Weil am Rhein will offer night owls a varied program.

Manor Basel's 'Night of the Museums' returns 

What: The Mall Group, in collaboration with the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI), PPP Plastics, and the Alliance to End Plastics Waste (AEPW), organize a competition to create a business from waste Business Model to encourage new generations to continue to use plastics.

Why is it important: To support the BCG economic development approach, circular economy and green economy (Bio-Circular-Green Economy), which is an economic model for sustainable development. This activity is under the ALL-Thailand Sustainable Plastic Management Project which wants to create a Business Model in waste management and can be used to expand broadly It is beneficial to the society, environment, and economy of Thailand.

The Mall Group builds a business from waste business model

What: Fnac Switzerland opens its shop-in-shop at Manor Lausanne.

Why is it important: The opening today of the Fnac shop-in-shop at Manor in Lausanne marks the end of the deployment of this project which saw the creation of 27 Fnac shop-in-shops at Manor in Switzerland, including 13 in German-speaking Switzerland and Ticino.

The new Fnac shop-in-shops within Manor, operate as a concession with a surface area of up to 1,000 m². These new spaces offer a wide selection of products and services, with associated customer advice, in the fields of books, music, cinema, multimedia, video games, telephony, photography on the 3rd floor de Manor, as well as small appliances and accessories on the 6th floor.

Fnac opens a shop-in-shop at Manor Lausanne

What:  Xi'an is a city with a strong potential, even though it does not have either the size or the power of Beijing and Shanghai, and SKP was the first retailer to sense it.

Why it is important: SKP is planning to double down on Xi'an by opening a SKP-S location, just like in Beijing, where the SKP-S location is praised for its quality and edgy approach.

Although Shanghai and Beijing dominate the Chinese luxury market, other and lesser-known destinations are also important in terms of consumption. Xi'an is a good example, by being the 10th city in terms of luxury consumption in China, with 12.95mn citizens (the 8th most populous city in China) and the 24th largest GDP in the country (growing +13.7% vs. 2019).

SKP has led the way in terms of luxury consumption, by opening the Xi'an 20-floors store in 2018 and bringing all luxury behemoth brands to the city. SKP Xi'an is 3 times the size of Harrods and showcases more than 1,000 brands on 250,000 square metres (60% of those brands entered Xi'an with SKP). In 2021, SKP Xi'an reported a revenue of USD $1.26bn, the 18th most successful mall in China. It is believed that the extremely popular SKP VIP black card membership is strongly contributing to the success of SKP in the city.

The article also explores other notable retail hotspots in Xi'an: SAGA Mall (where stores are not directly managed by luxury brands like at SKP), and Zhongda International Shopping Mall, which is less high end than SKP and SAGA. Luxury shoppers in the region include what the article calls the "Coal bosses", mine owners who made their money in natural resources extraction (the region is rich in coal and other natural resources), but also a rising middle class working in the booming logistics and technological sector (Alibaba and JD.com have offices in the city), and customers from the north western cities where luxury brands are not yet massively deployed (Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai, Xinjiang).

SKP dominates the Xi'an booming luxury market 

What: Breuninger has appointed David Zimmermann as the second managing director of the flagship store in Düsseldorf.

Why is it important: Zimmermann had already worked for four years from 2015 as head of the Men's Premium department in Düsseldorf. Before returning, he spent three years as Area Sales Manager at Oberpollinger in Munich.

Breuninger's new top management in Düsseldorf

What: The department store recorded an accumulated operating flow (EBITDA) of 952 million Mexican pesos (44.2 million euros). The sales grew to 8,956 million pesos (416.2 million euros). The company ended the first quarter of the year with an increase in its turnover of 49%, to 8,956 million Mexican pesos (416.2 million euros), compared to the same period of the previous year.

Why it is important: The growth is due to a greater demand, and to its strategy focused on the client leading to a 16% increase in revenue from its 'Palacio Contigo' program.

The Palacio de Hierro ended 2021 with a year-on-year growth in sales of 46.4%, to 37,215 million Mexican pesos (1,620 million euros). The company thus exceeded the level of sales prior to the pandemic, with an increase of 6.2% compared to 2019.

El Palacio de Hierro's Q1 results

What: According to the latest report Brand Finance Spain 100 2022 El Corte Ingles has increased its brand value and is among the three most important in Spain.

Why it is important: According to the valuation offered, the company grew its brand valuation by 16.5%, rising 3 positions and becoming one of the Spanish brands that increased the most in 2022.

Thus, in the last two years, the company has maintained a positive growth trend with a boom of +30.2%. In addition, according to the ranking, the company is the most valuable brand in the distribution sector with a value of EUR 6,063 million.

El Corte Inglés is among the three most valuable Spanish brands in terms of financial value

What: Breuninger makes specific jobs available and creates an offer for refugees from the Ukraine.

Why is it important: In cooperation with aid organizations, foundations and job exchanges such as 'Job aid for Ukrainian refugees' and 'Talents', Breuninger offers job seekers from Ukraine jobs as quickly and unbureaucratically as possible.

Breuninger is also currently working on setting up a psychological counseling center that all employees can turn to confidentially, regardless of whether they are dealing with problems in the current context or other private concerns.

Employees also receive paid leave if they take part in aid operations for the Ukraine, take in relatives, people or children in need, or assist in accommodating refugees.

Breuninger creates jobs for people from Ukraine

What: With an improvement in the health situation in the past few months, foreign tourists have been returning to Paris and visiting department stores.

Why is it important: The only downside is the continued absence of Chinese customers, but Alexandre Liot, director of Galeries Lafayette states that Asia, apart from China is starting to travel again and as soon as people can go out, the Paris destination remains popular. As a result, activity will remain below-average levels for the department store this year.

The department store sector must now evolve, adapt to new consumption patterns, and seek to attract new customers in order precisely to qualify the dependency on this or that clientele. Galeries Lafayettes Hausmann has thus reorganized the store and will open a temple of well-being, a real novelty for the legendary address which aims to retain local customers and attract international customers.

Galeries Lafayette is seeing a return from international customers (in French)

What: Fnac Switzerland opens its shop-in-shop at Manor Lucerne

Why is it important: Fnac will be present in the basement of the building on an area of nearly 390 square meters. Various customer actions are planned for the opening, in particular discovery vouchers which will be distributed at the checkouts of the Manor store, a free Fnac membership card during the opening week as well as an exclusive Apple offer for the first 100 customers of the new shop-in-shop with AirPods at 99 instead of 139 Francs.

Fnac opens shop-in-shop in Manor Lucerne

What: El Palacio de Hierro is set to open a new store in the mixed Mitikha residential and shopping complex in the Coyoacán area in southern Mexico City

Why is it important: The unit comes as the chain continues to expand and refurbish stores, having recently spent USD 98 million to build the Mitikha store and remodel two of its Perisur and Santa Fe locations.

El Palacio de Hierro to open new Mexico City store

What: As part of its +Green strategy, Falabella Retail has announced that 32 stores and 2 distribution centers of its business already have the international LEED certification of sustainable buildings, this at a regional level in Chile, Peru and Colombia.

Why is it important: The new Falabella Parque Arauco and two stores in Peru are in the process of being certified, so that in 2022 the sum would reach 37 sustainable facilities. Those that have the seal will also have a plaque at the entrance so that customers can identify them as sustainable premises when entering.

Falabella Retail developed, together with the Chile Green Building Council (GBC), its own in-store environmental performance rating called the +Green Seal, in order to make the efforts and responsibility visible to customers with first-rate sustainable facilities.

According to Falabella, this seal is regional and it is expected that by 2022 100% of the company's stores in Chile will have this distinction.

Falabella registers 34 facilities certified as sustainable 

What: Fnac opens the doors of its shop-in-shop at Manor Balerna.

Why it is important: As of 12 April, Fnac is now present on the 1st floor of the Manor Balerna location with a surface of 380 square meters.

For Manor, this partnership also means that its own stores and the manor.ch online store will benefit from Fnac's know-how and sales force in the multimedia, cultural products and small household appliances categories.

With the opening of Manor Balerna, the expansion of Fnac Switzerland's market presence is proceeding as planned.

Manor Balerna opens Fnac shop-in-shop

What: The specialist in second-hand children's fashion, Kids O'clock, the platform dedicated to responsible hygiene and maintenance products Agua Blanca and the online flea market Selency take over the fifth floor of the BHV Marais.

Why is it important: Second-hand products are becoming more and more popular in the offer of department stores. Last September, the Galeries Lafayette Haussmann opened a space of 500 square meters, called "(Re)-Store" which welcomes young brands advocating circular fashion and players in second-hand sales. Its neighbor Le Printemps has completely rehabilitated the Binet dome and the Silver Bridge to install its new second-hand offer.

In the BHV space, which recreates a four-room family nest, the three companies offer a selection of clothing, accessories, toys, linen, and body products, as well as furniture and decoration.

Kids O'clock, the British second-hand clothing and accessories platform for children, is being tested here for the first time in physical format. It offers an assortment of brands such as Bobo Choses, Bonpoint, and The Animals Observatory.

Agua Blanca unveils a selection of hygiene and care products for babies and children.

Selency, composes decor highlighting the product offer. And while the parents are doing their shopping, the children can take advantage of the activities on Wednesdays: creation of bouquets of dried flowers, yoga classes etc.

BHV Marais hosts Kids O'clock, Agua Blanca and Selency platforms (in FRENCh)

What: The space — home to products, services, a gym and a restaurant — will be situated on the minus-one floor of the department store's main building on Boulevard Haussmann and open in mid-July.

Why it is important: Galeries Lafayette has been carrying out widespread renovations over the past 18 months.

Galeries Lafayette's minus-one floor was formerly the shoe department, which was relocated to the fourth floor last year, making 32,290 sqf of space available. As part of its recent revamp, Printemps also open a new beauty space in its minus-one floor.

By curating products, brands and exclusive concepts, Galeries Lafayette's ambition is to become the reference for well-being and wellness in Paris — and even in Europe. The product and service offer will include dietary supplements, creams, hair products, treatment rooms for massage and alternative medicine (available for EUR 45 to EUR 400), a gym open before and after store hours. Athleisure is to be sold on this floor too, and there will be a restaurant serving food conceived with well-being in mind.

Galeries Lafayette to open a wellness department, WWD

Galeries Lafyette to open a wellness department, Press Release