Li & Fung surpasses three-year plan

-- Home Textiles Today, 3/28/2008 1:07:00 PM

Hong Kong – Diversified consumer products supplier and distributor Li & Fung has “successfully exceeded our original 2005-2007 Three-Year Plan,” which targeted $10 billion in revenues, by achieving total annual revenues of $11.8 billion, the company said (all figures in US$).

Marking its “strongest turnover growth since 2000,” the company said sales for the year ended Dec. 31, 2007 increased by 36% from the year prior, reflecting both internal expansion and acquisitions. One of the recent acquisitions was Alliance, an Indian home furnishings buying agency for which Li & Fung paid $13 million in December.

Li & Fung is familiar to the U.S. home textiles market as the owner of supplier Homestead and as a licensee of such brands as Royal Velvet (a former Pillowtex brand, now owned by Iconix Brand Group).

Earnings for Li & Fung of $393.3 million were up 39.1% from $282.8 million in 2006.

Li & Fung, which is active in apparel, shoes and cosmetics, as well as home textiles, said its U.S. market now represents 65% of total business – down from 72%, the result of a planned move into Europe, which now accounts for 26% of sales.

Time to double down: In the new three-year plan, for 2008-2010, the company said it is aiming for revenues of $20 billion, with three-fourths of that to come from sourcing operations. The operating-profit goal will be $1 billion.