TIP852: Hermès and LVMH Stock: Time to Buy Luxury? w/ Daniel Mahncke & Shawn O'Malley

Daniel Mahncke and Shawn O’Malley revisit the two luxury houses they passed on last time — Hermès (EPA: RMS), the 189-year-old maker of the Birkin bag, and LVMH (EPA: MC), the 75-brand conglomerate behind Louis Vuitton, Dior, Tiffany, and Hennessy. Both stocks now sit near their lows: Hermès is down more than 50% from its February 2025 peak and trades at 32 times earnings for the first time in a decade, while LVMH has fallen to a five-year low after two straight years of declining sales — something that didn’t even happen in 2009. The luxury industry has lost roughly 70 million customers since 2022, the Chinese market that tripled between 2017 and 2021 has been shrinking ever since, and a war in the Gulf emptied the stores on the Champs-Élysées of their best-spending tourists. But some brands are growing. Daniel and Shawn work out why Richemont can grow 20% in the same quarter LVMH grows 3%, why Hermès still earns a 41% margin while LVMH’s fashion and leather division has given back seven points of margin in five years, and why the top 0.1% of luxury clients keep spending while the aspirational buyer walks away. They also cover the Chinese property bust and its five-to-six-year playbook, and how prior luxury downturns in 2009, 2016, and 2020 ended. In the end, Daniel updates both valuation models and decides whether either Hermès or LVMH finally earns a spot in The Intrinsic Value Portfolio. IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN: (00:00:00) Intro (00:02:35) About the state of the luxury market (00:15:58) How Hermès’ business has done since our first pitch (00:20:22) What makes LVMH and Hermès special (00:31:30) How LVMH’s business has done since our first pitch (00:33:23) How China is impacting the luxury market (00:39:12) How long past luxury downturns were (01:02:33) Why Hermès has an even better chance of recovering quickly (01:09:10) Valuation discussion (01:10:43) Intrinsic value of RMS (01:12:26) Intrinsic value of LVMH (01:12:51) Whether LVMH or RMS will be added to The Intrinsic Value Portfolio Disclaimer: Slight discrepancies in the timestamps may occur due to podcast platform differences. BOOKS AND RESOURCES If you are interested in a Community for investors to learn, share ideas, network, and join calls with experts: Apply for The Intrinsic Value Mastermind. If you are interested in more personal meet-ups, meeting superinvestors, and discussing investing and things that go beyond: Apply for The Mastermind: Inner Circle. Track ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Intrinsic Value Portfolio⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Portfolio Review ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Submit Tool⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Original Episode on Hermès. Original Episode on LVMH. BCG Sector Analysis. Check out our previous Intrinsic Value breakdowns: Restoration Hardware, Formula One Group, Hermès, LVMH. Related ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠books⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ mentioned in the podcast. Ad-free episodes on our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Premium Feed⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. NEW TO THE SHOW? Get smarter about valuing businesses through ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Intrinsic Value Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Check out ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Investor’s Podcast Starter Packs⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Follow our official social media accounts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Try our tool for picking stock winners and managing our portfolios: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TIP Finance⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Enjoy exclusive perks from our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠favorite Apps and Services⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn how to better start, manage, and grow your business with the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠best business podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. SPONSORS Support our free podcast by supporting our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠sponsors⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Monarch Plus500 Netsuite References to any third-party products, services, or advertisers do not constitute endorsements, and The Investor’s Podcast Network is not responsible for any claims made by them. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm

• 0:00Speaker 00

  You're listening to TIP.

• 0:03Speaker 01

  Welcome back to the Investors Podcast. Today's episode is 8:52 and Sean and I actually had a one-week break. No recordings of the two of us and I can safely say that doesn't happen too often. So you may have already forgotten Sean, but the last stock that I pitched to you was Meta.

• 0:20Speaker 02

  Oh, I remember it well. Don't worry.

• 0:23Speaker 01

  Well, today I thought I wouldn't just pitch you one stock, but actually two. In fact, we looked at the two companies before. You covered LVMH in July of last year and I covered MS in February of this year. But since then, both stocks have become arguably even more attractive as they have kept dropping and have now reached historical valuation lows, which for a company like MS still means 30-plus multiple, but still significantly cheaper than we can usually buy them. So while we decided not to buy either of them last time for our intrinsic value portfolio, maybe this time it's different.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  Well, we definitely like the businesses, but we were a bit concerned about the valuations. We would have had to pay for the shares in them. And then there are also some macro concerns that were already starting to show up. And anybody who knows us knows we're not macro investors, but when the consequences of macroeconomic developments are already being felt at the company level and then you're still paying a premium, a hefty premium at that for shares in the stock. Well, that's just not the sort of margin of safety-like investment setup that we look for.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  I gotta say though, I especially liked MS, which now is 50% from its all-time highs and about 35% lower, so quite significantly lower than the last time we looked at the stock. But as you said, there definitely are concerning trends with these companies that cause us to not just look at the stock price, but actually figure out what's going on.

• 1:44Speaker 02

  And that is why we're here to record today's episode. So let's get into it.

• 1:52Speaker 00

  Since 2014, with more than 200 million downloads, we have interviewed the world's best investors, studied deeply the principles of value investing and uncovered many compelling investment opportunities. We focus on understanding businesses and intrinsic value, investing accordingly and sharing everything we learn with you. This show is not investment advice. It's intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. All opinions expressed by hosts and guests are solely their own and they may have investments in the securities discussed. Now for your hosts, Sean O'Malley and Daniel Manca.

• 2:38Speaker 02

  All right, Daniel, where do you want to start today?

• 2:40Speaker 01

  So maybe a good place to start today is the state of the luxury market in general, because it's quite interesting. I feel like luxury has been seen as this stable, non-cyclical industry since its customers are supposed to be less concerned with how the general economy is doing. So you know, when you have $20 million in the bank account, you're not really that faced by how the economy is doing anymore, at least I assume. I unfortunately don't have 20 million in my bank account. But as we worked out in our original episodes, luxury brands that get bigger and bigger also sell to people who you call aspirational buyers. And this is even more true for LVMH than MS, but as MS gets bigger, it definitely experiences similar things too.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  And just to quickly mention the definition of aspirational buyers. These are consumers who have relatively high-earning jobs, but they're not wealthy or rich, or they don't necessarily feel wealthy or rich. And they do very much need their monthly paycheck when they go out and shop at LVMH. So that's sort of the difference. And on average, they're spending about maybe $1,500 to $5,000 per year on luxury products, which is still a lot of money by all means. And so what that also means is that they're not buying these signature pieces like the Birkin bag, but they're buying more entry-level products.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  It's a lot of money, but it's not yet enough to buy more than, let's say, two sweaters in some of these stores. So I think MS is a good example of that, where you know, if you're an aspirational buyer, you don't have enough money or even the access, to be honest, to buy, let's say, a Birkin bag, which is, you know, their signature bag or something like a Kelly, which is another one of those, but you can buy some clothing, you know, for example, a belt or something similar, something that's smaller, but still sort of affordable, even though it's definitely the opposite of cheap. And aspirational buyers generally account for roughly half of the total luxury market's value. And then in times like 2022 to 2024, when there was this massive splurge in fashion and luxury, especially due to the COVID checks, but also a very strong stock market and also

• 4:38Speaker 01

  higher savings rate, because in the years before, when COVID happened, you know, people couldn't go out, they couldn't shop or eat, so they had more money saved in the bank accounts. And in those times, aspirational buyers were especially important and sort of boosted the company's sales and profits. But obviously, those are also the customers that fall away when the economy cools down and they don't feel like they have as much money anymore. If you take all of luxury together, so you know, you're talking cars, hotels, yards, fine dining, everything, you know, experiences plus things you can buy. People spent about $1.44 trillion on all of that just last year. So that's basically, you know, sounding like a huge number, but it's also flat year over year. It's not more than they spent last year.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  And if you narrow it to just personal luxury goods, so handbags, clothing, jewelry, watches, beauty, all that stuff that MS and LVMH are actually selling, then the market size is about $360 billion. But even that market is shrinking by about $5 to $6 billion per year since the end of 2023.

• 5:39Speaker 02

  And this is basically also what we've seen with LVMH and Hermes, which just due to their size are somewhat of a proxy for the overall luxury market. And LVMH has experienced declining sales for two years in a row now, for example. And that is a bit of an outlier historically for a company like LVMH. And as you said earlier, these companies are supposed to be more stable than any other fashion companies and really the broader economy. Even after the financial crisis of 2008, LVMH only saw basically a single year of what was flat sales. So not even the great financial crisis could bring down LVMH's growth trajectory. And for us to now be seeing LVMH's sales drop to 2022 levels, it's definitely very

• 6:23Speaker 02

  concerning to shareholders and the stock has acted accordingly.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  And it's not only LVMH. I mean, there's a similar pattern in all of luxury and also for MS. Although I would say that you can clearly see LVMH struggling more than some of these companies, especially the top-tier ones like MS, which has also seen sales declines, but not yet a single year of negative sales growth, except for the pandemic in 2020. But sales growth has definitely declined massively. I mean, it was going from 40% in 2021, which again was this abnormally high part of the market to less than 3% in the last 12 months. So that's essentially the lowest level that we have seen in the last two decades. In the first one or two years after the exuberant times of the pandemic, it was understandable that growth, you know, was somewhat pulled forward, but things do not seem to get any better.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  And I think that's why the market is currently a bit more skeptical when it comes to these luxury companies. And for both companies, so LVMH and MS, part of the reason why it's not getting significantly better is Asia and especially China, because growth came down in basically all geographies, but the biggest decline has been seen in Asia and especially in China. This used to be, you know, the consistently fastest growing market of the last decade. I mean, just in the last three years, it was basically the slowest growing market for MS, even reaching close to zero growth in this quarter. And that's just something that didn't happen before.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  And once again, the picture's even more severe for LVMH of the two, right? Asia revenue for them declined about 20% from its peak in 2023. And then US revenues for LVMH have stagnated since 2022. And then in Europe, you're seeing their revenues start to stagnate since going back to 2024. So the common problems for LVMH and Hermes are that firstly, aspirational buyers have spent less in recent years. And China, as the kind of centerpiece of demand for the luxury good market, demand there has slowed down significantly at the same time.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  One of the best metrics that you can look at is basically just the absolute number of customers. So the luxury industry had about 400 million customers in 2022 and now it's about 330 to 340 million in 2025. So they lost about 70 million customers in just three years. And obviously, since that drop is more severe than, for example, the revenue numbers of companies like LVMH and certainly MS, you can tell that the high spenders, they are still spending, but the people on the margin left. So those are the aspirational buyer. And then at the top, you have generally people spending more than 50,000 euros per year on luxury goods. So that's at least 50 t-shirts. I'm just kidding, of course. So that's a tiny group of people. I think when I read the numbers, it's below 1 million people worldwide that spend as

• 9:05Speaker 01

  much money on luxury goods, but it accounts for something like a fifth of our luxury spending. And it also has been growing at about 8% to 9% for over a decade, which is significantly faster than the aspirational buyers. In the middle, you have something that the industry calls absolute clients. So they are spending somewhere between 5,000 to 50,000 euros a year, which is sort of a big range, but that's where they generally are at. And then at the bottom, you have what we discussed already, these aspirational clients. And they are defined as, as you said, spending less than 5,000 euros. Oftentimes, it's a lot less than those 5,000. For example, it's just one bag and that's basically all the money they spend in one year. And those are, you know, hundreds of millions of people. But again, that group is not only having a hard time, but now it's also growing significantly slower.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  It's just 1% a year. And that's not only the case in the last two or three years. It's basically the case over the entire last decade.

• 9:56Speaker 02

  And to some extent, I think that puts a mirror up to society right now where you have even people who would be considered the top percentiles of wealth. Some of them are falling into this aspirational buyer category and not able to keep up with price increases because these brands really have pushed their pricing power. Between 2019 and 2023, the whole industry pushed up prices enormously. And it made a lot of products just simply unaffordable for the upper middle class customer who used to buy one nice bag every couple of years. A Louis Vuitton bag that cost $1,500 in 2019 costs $2,500 today. And so the customer did not get 60% richer necessarily in the meantime.

• 10:40Speaker 02

  And when you have a larger number of aspirational customers that make up the kind of demand composition for your brand, you tend to price out a large chunk of your customers, of course, by doing that. And that is sort of the problem that LVMH has seen. These price increases looked reasonable in 2022 when volumes were much higher. And this was a good way to make money and also protect the brand from having too many people gain access. But you flash forward a couple of years and now the products are unaffordable for aspirational buyers and kind of first time luxury purchasers. And just going back to that point on not wanting everybody to gain access. I mean, that is one of the key selling points of luxury.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  You don't want everybody walking around with a Louis Vuitton bag from the brand's perspective. The problem is that luxury brands though can't discount or just set back prices. So now their products are significantly more expensive and they're kind of trapped there. And the consumer can't really keep up with that pace.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  It's also quite interesting if you just compare that with other brands in the luxury space. So some names are performing quite well even right now. And then it's always interesting to see what do they make differently compared to, for example, LVMH and MS. And the best performer in the industry right now is Richemont, which is basically a group of brands that are specialized in what they do, primarily it's jewelry. So you have brands like Cartier, Van Cleef, you have specialist watchmakers like Langton Zune or Vacheron Constantin, and also some fashion brands that, I gotta be completely honest, I don't personally know much about them. I think it's not, you know, a big part of their business, but I gotta say their watch portfolio is quite impressive. I mean, especially brands like Langton Zune, Vacheron Constantin, IWC, and also Cartier

• 12:23Speaker 01

  are all high prestige brands with pretty good standing. And then you have LVMH, on the other hand, which owns brands like Sinead, Bulgari, Targ Hoya and Ublot. And I don't want to throw any shade, but I would personally say that's not necessarily the same level as Richemont. But anyway, you know, they did quite well, going 20% overall. And I talk about Richemont here, not LVMH. And the main contributor to that has definitely been the jewelry part of the business. So one differentiating factor, if you want to compare those businesses, seems to be that jewelry is doing a lot better than fashion. And it sort of fits our narrative here where basically there are significantly higher price tags for those products. So it fits the story of, you know, aspirational buyers are not buying anymore, but the top 1%, they are still there.

• 13:06Speaker 02

  To some extent, for there to continue to be this demand for jewelry products, I think a lot of that is coming from the huge increases in gold and silver prices that we've seen in the last few years. Cause that really does play into the argument that, at least for some, as they're trying to rationalize a purchase, that maybe this jewelry is something of an investment as opposed to simply just being an expense. And so I actually had a really interesting conversation with somebody at a wedding recently, which I know I told you about, Daniel, where they had a pretty unique perspective on how to rationalize a Rolex as an investment. And he basically saw it as a networking investment where when he had it on, he's more likely

• 13:49Speaker 02

  to attract other people interested in Rolexes into conversations. And that sort of creates a shared interest and connection to be able to network with wealthy individuals, right? It's an excuse to talk to the upper echelons of society. And admittedly, I don't know all that much about watches, but I don't think it's a totally crazy argument when you also consider the fact that Rolexes tend to hold their value across time. So if you take care of it, you're pretty likely to not lose your money or not lose much money. And then while you wear it, it does upgrade your social status in a way that maybe creates new business opportunities from time to time. And obviously this is not an investment in the typical way we talk about investments,

• 14:30Speaker 02

  but as an excuse for making an expensive purchase, I've definitely heard worse excuses. I mean, it's a pretty compelling one.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  I think it's fair. Yeah. And obviously as a watch lover myself, I'm the first to try to justify a buy by calling it an investment. I'm definitely first in line there. Also, I would say that watches are generally considered good investments at the right price. I don't know if I would actually agree with that. I think there are certain time pieces that from the monetary perspective can actually be good investments. I think most are not. Most of the time, as you said, they might hold their value generally, but if you wear it and it gets used, you will definitely lose some money. Obviously, if your argument is that it's good for networking, which probably is true to some extent, also depending on which watch you will actually wear, I think I can live with that argument, I would say. I think what also helps brands, it's something that I looked into further, like Cartier

• 15:19Speaker 01

  or these sort of branded jewelry, is that they are actually taking share from independent jewelers, which is kind of interesting because I thought there was a movement to support independent jewelers more. For example, there's a movement in the watch space where independent watch brands are doing better and better. So apparently that's not necessarily true for jewelers. But I mean, for us, it's kind of good because LVMH is also benefiting from it. Their brands like Bulgari and Tiffany, which obviously are both owned by LVMH, were up 11% last quarter. But the problem is that for LVMH, jewelry is only about 12 to 13% of sales. Richmond, on the other hand, makes over 17% of its sales jewelry. And if we include watches, it's actually closer to 90%, so almost their entire business.

• 16:01Speaker 02

  Well, so how do things compare for some of these other companies that are considered ultra luxury? I believe you mentioned a company called Brunello Cucinelli last time we discussed Hermes. So maybe how are they faring?

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the sort of brand that I mentioned when I said you can spend $1,000 on a t-shirt if you feel like it. And at that price, you have certainly priced out all the aspirational buyers and you only left with the probably top 0.1% to be honest. But perhaps that's also why Cucinelli was unfazed by the recent struggles in the luxury market and just kept going nicely. It's not a perfect comp for MS, I would say, just because it's significantly smaller. It's about 10% of MS's size. It's still expanding its store count too, which is something that MS has not done in recent years. Actually, the store count came down and as a smaller brand, they also haven't yet made it into Asia, which again is part of the market where currently there are a bit of struggles with the buyers. And for them, I think the Americas are 37% of sales, so almost 40%.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  And that region grew 20%. So once you reach a certain size, I think you have to play in Asia and just sort of also have to open up to aspirational buyers, at least with some products in the categories. I think MS, for example, is one of those brands that for the longest time was a brand for the top 1%, maybe even the top 0.1%. But the more volume you have, the faster you want to grow. It's always a balance, but you have to let aspirational buyers into certain categories of what you sell.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  And when you look at brands like Gucci, Christian Dior, or Gucci's parent company, Karen, they're pretty much all experiencing the same thing as LVMH. So the differentiating factors right now are Asia and specifically China exposure as well as the target customer. And so the more you sell to the top 1%, and the more of that is done outside of Asia, probably the better you're doing right now. But before we go deeper into the current situation, how about we just do a little bit of a refresh more generally on LVMH and Hermes and how they differ besides the fact that LVMH has more aspirational buyers than Hermes, which we know quite well.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think probably the biggest difference is that MS is more or less just one brand, while LVMH is a conglomerate of brands, as you said in your pitch back then. Actually, the biggest luxury conglomerate in the world where MS has basically 16, what they call Miti's, which is their word for product categories. And then you have a small side investment, which are brands like John Loeb Shoes and Saint Louis Crystal. But again, that's, you know, a very small part of its business. At its heart, it's one brand and most people also connect MS more or less to one special product, which is obviously their bags. So they make up almost half of the company's revenue. So MS is, I would personally probably say a very concentrated bet on one brand and one product.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Actually, even geographically, there is a concentration risk since Asia excluding Japan is more than 40% of sales. MS does come with tremendous history though, and a very defined approach to selling luxury. So to some extent, they've pioneered the waitlist approach in fashion, which by now, there are a lot of brands doing that, but MS was sort of the front runner on that. So I would say that they basically did what the book, The Luxury Strategy is pointing out. So don't respond to rising demand, keep supply below what the market actually wants, raise prices over time, not to cover costs, which is something that other brands would technically do, but luxury companies don't. You only raise costs because a higher price makes the product look more desirable to your customer base. And then you just make it hard for people to buy.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  So you don't advertise to sell, you basically advertise to build a myth to sort of put the history of the brand, which is also something that we discussed with most of the luxury brands that they have a history, which is not necessarily luxury, but more like excellence in a certain niche. And then over time, they get into this luxury, basically department of selling there. And another big part, and you mentioned that with LVMH, is to keep people out who aren't actually your customer. So, you know, you only sell in stores, you don't sell a lot online, you don't move production to a cheaper country. So for MS is, for example, in France and you don't go to Vietnam, you don't go to China, that's quite important. Then maybe the most important point, you have a history, again, that nobody can copy. So that's the one differentiating factor where if you ask, why do you buy MS? Why do you not buy Chanel?

• 20:15Speaker 01

  Why do you not buy Louis Vuitton? It's because the history of MS is sort of what makes the brand. And I think that's probably the most important point. So there you have it, basically saved you reading The Luxury Strategy again.

• 20:25Speaker 02

  Let's take a quick break. Here from today's sponsors. Early in my career, I was shipping away at student loans and it felt like it would never end. I'd make a payment, check the balance, and it barely moved. What finally changed my mindset was seeing a real finish line, a date I could actually circle on the calendar. That's what Monarch's debt pay down simulator gives you. It uses your real balances and payments to show your exact debt-free date. Then you can run different scenarios side by side, like adding an extra hundred dollars a month and instantly see how much sooner you'd be done. Watching that timeline shrink is really motivating and you're the one in control of the plan. Plus, a quick check-in on

• 21:05Speaker 02

  your phone or laptop tells you exactly where your money stands. It's so important to manage your finances and I believe Monarch can help you in doing so. Write your own money story with Monarch. Use code WSB at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just $50. That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with code WSB. Interested in futures trading and looking for a place to get started? With Plus 500 Futures, you can explore some of the world's most active markets, all from one easy to use platform. Trade futures on popular assets like the S and P 500, NASDAQ, oil, gold, Bitcoin, Forex,

• 21:48Speaker 02

  and more. Whether markets are moving in crypto, commodities, or indices, there's always something to follow. Plus 500 Futures is designed to make trading straightforward. The platform you can access wherever you are, right from your phone. And you can get started with a minimum deposit of just $10. Not ready to trade with real funds? Try the free unlimited demo account first and explore the platform without putting real money at risk. Backed by nearly 20 years of experience and trust by millions of customers worldwide, Plus 500 gives you the tools to stay connected to the futures markets. Visit us dot plus 500 dot com to learn more. Trading in futures involves risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. Not all applicants will qualify. Plus 500, it's trading with a plus.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  You don't need me to tell you that rent and mortgages are only getting more expensive. That's why Built created three credit cards designed to offer the richest rewards on rent, mortgage, and everything else you spend on. Whether you rent or own, you can earn up to 1.25 X points on every housing payment without the transaction fee, no matter where you live. Points can be redeemed for flights, hotels, Lyft rides, a future housing payment, and much more. Turn one of the most unavoidable payments in your life into the most rewarding. Find the card that's right for you and apply at joinbuilt.com slash T I P. That's J O I N B I L T dot com slash

• 23:18Speaker 02

  T I P. Use our link so they know we sent you. Terms apply, subject to approval and eligibility. Built cards are issued by Column NA, Member FDIC pursuant to license from Mastercard International, Incorporated. All right, back to the show. Well, some of these brands tie all the way back to the Napoleonic era and literally making products for Napoleon. So that's the sort of pedigree we're talking about when you can't match their history. And then to your point on this idea of trying to keep the people out who aren't really your target customer, if we just linger on that, that essentially means limiting access for maybe the lower end of the aspirational buyer cohorts. You know, these are people who

• 24:02Speaker 02

  make very, very high salaries but don't have net worth in the tens of millions of dollars. These are folks that LVMH has largely introduced to the world of luxury. And that's also why they raised prices so aggressively during the pandemic period, and then how that has sort of backfired against them. But aside from that mistake, LVMH has done a tremendous job over the last few decades, finding the right balance between staying luxury and introducing aspirational buyers to the brand to grow volume. And in bad times like right now, it might not seem that smart since the

• 24:42Speaker 02

  business is now more cyclical and perhaps not as high-end as Hermès. But LVMH has become the biggest luxury brand in the world for a reason. And maybe it's a bit like Rolex. Rolex is probably still considered higher up on the luxury scale, but it does get criticized fairly often for the pretty substantial volume that it still sells. And the reality is that this is what makes up kind of the best of the best luxury brands in the world. They have this ability to balance desirability and accessibility, and there's a real art to it. And so Hermès has limited aspirational buyers, so only being able to purchase ready-to-wear products and kind of

• 25:23Speaker 02

  accessory parts of the business, which allows them to grab some of the volume, but they protect their most important and most prestigious products, which are the bags, the handbags, and especially bags like the Kelly or the Birkin. They protect those. And you have to literally earn the right to purchase them and prove yourself as a consumer because there's only so many of these that are distributed each year. And the employees at stores, it's really left to their discretion to some extent to decide how to allocate who gets which bags.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  That strategy is actually so common by now that there's a name for it, and it's called gating. So you basically first have to build a purchase history, buying these lower prestige goods, and only then you'll be invited to buy the more prestigious bags. Which is kind of funny in itself because usually if you want to buy something, it's your decision, then you go to the store and you buy it. In this case, it's not necessarily your decision, you actually get invited to a certain flagship store. And then you will also not have the opportunity to just buy whatever Kelly bag you want, but there will only be two or three available. They will be shown to you. And then out of those three, you can make a decision on which of those three bags you want to buy. And I could imagine that if you decline one of them because you don't necessarily want one of those, maybe you want a different color, that doesn't reflect too well on your waitlist approach. I

• 26:41Speaker 01

  think if you decline a Kelly, you might not get a chance again to buy another one. And that's basically how it works. And on the one hand, this obviously drives a lot more sales because you're not only selling the bag, but you're selling at least the same amount of money before in lower-tier products. But even more importantly, it does protect the brand from, you know, the wrong brand ambassadors. And that's pretty much what you want to see. If everybody has LVMH bag, for example, and shares it on Instagram, it's just not something special anymore, right? You want to see to some extent as few people as possible, but then also, you know, the amount of people you need to still have volume if you're a luxury brand, which again, it's incredibly difficult to reach that. So I have huge respect for LVMH, but also Rolex, who are brands that basically for decades achieved exactly this balance of having enough people buy your product,

• 27:25Speaker 01

  but also making it kind of difficult to get them. Another also sort of small advantage that I personally like is that MS doesn't have this signature print as Louis Vuitton, because that also makes it so much easier to get all of these fakes, right, that you see. If I see a Louis Vuitton bag out there, I just don't know if it's a fake or if it's real. If I see MS, there's a pretty high likelihood that it's real, simply because there's no signature print. Like, you sort of have to see it. It kind of reminds me all the time when I see it outside of Lululemon, which is a totally different brand, but I always tell you that I don't even see when somebody wears Lululemon outside because they don't have, you know, a huge Lululemon logo or whatever on their sweaters. So I don't see it, while you would immediately spot it. And it's similar with MS, where you can

• 28:07Speaker 01

  see it if you sort of know how they look like and you have the eyes for it. But if you don't, you wouldn't even necessarily recognize that you have an MS bag in front of you.

• 28:15Speaker 02

  I think that's right. And I appreciate you invoking Lululemon despite the financial pain that investment inflicted on us. And I think to some extent, the omnipotence of LVMH products has made them into what they are and also worked against them in some ways. And so, you know, most women who think of buying their first luxury bag, they're going to go for an LVMH bag. And that is pretty much true all over the world. And while LVMH looks like a more diversified bet comparatively against Hermès, with more than 75 brands, these so-called maison across five segments, LVMH is also quite concentrated in some ways, too. And the most important segment

• 28:57Speaker 02

  is unsurprisingly, fashion and leather goods, which consists of Louis Vuitton, Dior, Laura Piana, Celine, Fendi, and others like that. And so then in the wine and spirits business, you've got Moet, Hennessy, and Dom Perignon, perfumes and cosmetics as well, watches and jewelry, and that includes Tiffany and Bulgari, and what they call selective retailing, which is basically Sephora plus the sales that they do duty-free at airports. And so it sounds very diversified, but really fashion and leather goods make up almost half of all their revenues and 75% of their profits. So the business is very concentrated on that one area.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  Just so listeners know, especially the French listeners, we do pay attention to how these brands are pronounced. Obviously, we're not the best at it, but I'm quite proud of Sean for getting all these names not only included here, but also doing a pretty good job of pronouncing them, I would say. But as you said, especially because the Louis Vuitton brand with all that, you know, fashion and leather segment, is estimated to make up about half of profits. So leather and goods, basically, just to summarize it, are 75% of profits. And of that 75%, half of it is just the Louis Vuitton brand. So it's pretty concentrated, even though it doesn't look at it, if you look at, you know, all the brands that LVMH actually owns. But geographically, it's quite balanced. So there you basically have Europe and the US, which are

• 30:23Speaker 01

  both about a quarter of sales each. Asia, excluding Japan, is 30%. And then Japan itself is 8%. And then everything else is 30%. So basically, you have a very global brand that to some extent is concentrated in what they sell, especially in terms of the brand. But otherwise, geographically at least, it's quite diversified.

• 30:41Speaker 02

  We've only had to stop about every other minute to Google the pronunciation of a lot of these brands. And so that's been edited out for your convenience, but I'm sure there would be a great blooper reel for folks if they wanted to watch this episode back. But yeah, all those numbers, I think, explain pretty well why LVMH is having such a difficult time right now. Fashion and leather goods had seven consecutive quarters of negative organic growth from the third quarter of 2024 through the first quarter of this year. And then cognac, historically, the other major profit contributor saw profit drop 25% last year. And at the same time, Sephora and jewelry did, however, do pretty well.

• 31:26Speaker 02

  But these are much, much lower margin businesses. So it's very difficult for them to offset the profit decline on their own. And so while revenue is already looking weak and there was some diversification protection, the profit drivers are more concentrated and have had a rough time. And that has led to a 25% decrease in profits since the end of 2023, which is really sharp for a company that is, you know, a compound or bro favorite, seen as one of these top quality businesses that you can own, where you expect things to mostly just go up and to the right. But even after this big drop off in sales, I think it's fair to say, what really is the likelihood that LVMH won't recover? And I

• 32:11Speaker 02

  would say quite low, probably. With jewelry and retail like Sephora growing, plus a comeback, some sort of mean reversion in the wine and spirit segment, you could have relatively strong performance in large parts of the business. And then you pretty much have to more or less only wait for the Louis Vuitton brand to recover. And I think that is a brand that's so strong. It's really just a question of weathering various macro headwinds as opposed to worrying about the brand itself being structurally impaired. And speaking of macro headwinds, maybe we should talk about the macro situation a little more overall and China specifically, given its importance to the global luxury market.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think China is, is very important, not only because you definitely have some, I'd say, weak times for the Chinese consumer, but also that if I would have to say that the brands themselves are endangered in any geography, it's probably in China. We'll get into why I think that is. But again, like if we want to look at MS and LVMH and sort of figure out when they might recover, we definitely need to look at the Chinese market. So focusing on it, basically from 2017 to 2021, so that was four years, the luxury market in mainland China has tripled. At that point, Chinese consumers accounted for roughly a third of all luxury spending worldwide, which is sort of explaining to you why we need to look at this market. A third of all the luxury spending globally

• 33:37Speaker 01

  was just by Chinese consumers, which is just an insane set. So every brand built its store network and also its growth plan around that geography. And as we know, it wasn't only luxury brands, we also had Nike, which had a big expansion in China, although they started a bit earlier than most other brands. And then also Lululemon and many other Western brands that went into this market. And for a long time, it worked out quite well for them. But even they saw that there is a significant headwind right now in that geography. I think if we just go by the timeline, basically, when the lockdowns came, the Chinese market fell about 10%. And while there was a quick rebound just a year later, the downward trend basically continued in the years ahead. So while brands thought, okay, we should probably double down on China after the pandemic, there was a downtrend after that. And if

• 34:20Speaker 01

  you just add up what Chinese consumers spend worldwide at home and also traveling, so for example, a Chinese tourist in Paris or in Milan, that's now under a fifth of the global luxury market, down from a third just a couple of years ago, just to give you a dimension of how much it has decreased in the last couple of years.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  And a big part of the collapse in spending, I think, has been due to the struggling property market, the struggling real estate market in China. Is that right?

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, home prices have been basically falling for four years now. And there's also not really an end in sight yet. I mean, obviously, the decline is starting to get slower, but you don't really know when it's supposed to recover. And I should say that for Chinese household, property was basically the main store of wealth. So a lot of people feel considerably poorer than they did in 2021, even if, for example, their salary or maybe the amount of money in their bank accounts has naturally changed. And whenever you feel less secure, obviously, you start to save more money. And households now save more than 30% of their disposable income on average to basically prepay mortgages because it's just not as safe, I would say that, for example, they can rent it out at any point. And obviously, if they don't spend that money but save it,

• 35:28Speaker 01

  the economy has been not performing too well. I think it actually has been in my deflation for close to three years now, which is one of the only major economies in the world that actually is experiencing deflation instead of inflation.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  And as always, in cycles like that, the economy gets weaker and weaker when the consumers aren't spending. And then that leads to fewer businesses looking for new employees because that consumer spending is income for those businesses. And that leads to a higher unemployment rate, which yet again means fewer people having money to spend. And you get this kind of recursive feedback loop that can be very, very damaging to any economy. And so in China, I think many analysts have suspected that the four and a half percent GDP growth numbers being published are not exactly matching the underlying reality that's actually occurring.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's primarily US analysts, but maybe only because they are allowed to say it. But I think even if China's GDP is growing at, for example, 4.5%, it doesn't really matter because as Dumas, who's the CEO of MS, basically put it, he said, well, GDP doesn't drive purchases. It's either properties or equities. Obviously, equities are significantly more important in the Western world. But there are definitely many problems inside the Chinese economy that came up after Evergrande, which was basically this major real estate developer that blew up in, I think, was 2021. And it seems to be a long process to get the economy back on track, which is also why China is focused even more than they usually do on exporting goods in the last few years. And there's also an interesting consumer trend in the luxury field, especially where a couple of

• 37:00Speaker 01

  months ago, for example, I read about a brand that was called Laobu, which is basically a brand that sells gold jewelry and people queued up for hours in front of their stores. And the special thing about it is that their jewelry is basically traditional Chinese designs. And it's also called the MS of gold. So that's why I was interested in that article a couple of months ago. And it doesn't really strike me as, you know, being the MS of gold since I also read about certain discounts, especially when the price of gold has declined. And they also don't restrict access to their products like MS does. So it's not exactly the same, but it does show you first that consumers do spend more money on jewelry compared to bags and clothing, which is also what we saw as a trend in the Western world.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Talked about Richmond, for example. Then second, they do see this investment aspect, you know, buying gold instead of, you know, leather and fashion and bags and that sort of stuff, which is getting more important to the consumers in the luxury world. And also, to some extent, it shows you that they go for these Chinese designs and not necessarily for new Western brands that now make it into China. And, you know, I said it before, people assume that maybe a Birkin bag is also an investment, but especially in the last couple of years with where the prices of gold and silver have been. If you're a consumer and you're more interested in buying something that actually holds value and perhaps even increases in value, you probably went for gold jewelry, which is something that LVMH and MS simply don't have to the same extent.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  I think the funny thing about all this is that where you have products like leather bags, the price difference relative to the cost and materials is so astronomical that it's sort of taken for granted that you're paying just for the brand. And so nobody really fights you on it, right? Nobody goes in and asks for a discount on a Birkin bag when leather prices decline. But when you're selling jewelry, there is this real element of correlation with gold and silver prices where fundamentally, the price of a gold watch or earrings or whatever it is, will their value will fluctuate based on these

• 39:03Speaker 02

  market factors that are beyond the brand's control. And so can the brand convince people to sort of pay a steady price for their jewelry regardless of what's going on in the precious metals markets? And so that is, I think, something that is probably not been achievable for any of the major brands, right? There is just this reality where jewelry pairs very closely with these silver and gold prices. And in the last year, in the last few years, I would definitely imagine that the sharp increases in gold prices has helped with shopping demand for more jewelry. But if you compare this recent downturn, which is

• 39:44Speaker 02

  primarily driven by the real estate bubble bursting to historical ones, how do you think they compare? And what is different this time?

• 39:52Speaker 01

  I think there's one major prior luxury downturn, especially in China, that matters to us because we can compare it. And that one happened from 2013 to 2016. And back then, Xi Jinping started what he called the anti-corruption campaign. And it essentially killed the relatively big, you can probably call it luxury gifting situation, where basically officials stopped accepting watches, bags and all that sort of stuff. And then also business people stopped gifting them, exactly that sort of stuff. And also, obviously, you would at least think twice about legally buying one for yourself, because it would look a bit suspicious at that time if you, for example, working somewhere in, you know, politics and then you have a new Rolex, even if it was not a gift, you probably didn't do that.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  And just that alone was enough to basically have the entire market go flat for about three to four years' time. But things did change in 2016 because you had a new generation of Chinese millennials arriving, and they had a lot of money and they didn't have the same sort of fear spending it than the other generations. And because China also cut, that's some of the macro stuff that they did, import duties and brands locally harmonized prices, which then meant that more people started buying in China again compared to being tourists in again, Paris, Milan, or those sort of cities. And that was enough to get the market back on track. And the result has basically been 25% annual growth between 2016 and 2019,

• 41:14Speaker 01

  which is also the time when a lot of these brands decided, we gotta get into China. This is the market that is growing by far the fastest out of all the markets in the world. And this time, it feels a bit different because in 2013, again, it was primarily a policy hitting the rich and the economy underneath was doing fine, so technically they had the money to spend it. Today, you obviously also have a bit of that policy stuff. I mean, we talked about all of the tech founders who become billionaires, and then they sort of are more careful with what they say publicly. I think that's part of it, but more importantly, you have actual economic problems as we discussed. And even if they don't necessarily hit the top 1%, or at least they hit them much less, it is sort of a different animal if you actually have a problem in the economy.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  And then beyond that, the recovery from 2016 was primarily, again, driven by a wave of new customers, which were the millennials. And if you compare that to you today, I just don't see that sort of wave of new customers. And maybe the last point, even if you have the money and that's similar to 2013, and you could go out and buy it, if the entire country is sort of in an economic crisis and you have the philosophy of the CCP and in China generally, probably if you're the top 1%, you don't go out and buy a record amount of Birkenstocks even if you can.

• 42:27Speaker 02

  And this is once again, an argument for investing in brands that serve the top of the top, because those are the consumers that will still go for international brands, maybe not exclusively, but they certainly did not stop buying from Hermes, for example. But many LVMH brands did not enjoy that same customer stickiness. So to summarize, LVMH's China problem seems to really be more of a middle-class problem, where you had many aspirational buyers who felt rich when their real estate went up in value and now suddenly feel a whole lot less rich, if rich at all, and have suddenly stopped buying luxury goods. And Hermes, on the other hand, is sort of affected by a different problem in China,

• 43:11Speaker 02

  rather than the overall economy, but specifically with struggles of policy and perception. And so it's not well perceived, for example, for the ultra-rich to be running around with Hermes bags, while you have this major property crisis in the country and the middle class is struggling. And so that is generally a dynamic that I think makes it hard for me to invest in luxury brands that have a lot of exposure in China at the moment. And if you project this onto the company level, you basically suffer from success. And the better you do, the more you get into the crosshairs of the CCP. And Pendo Duo is not a luxury company, but it is a company that you pitched a couple of months ago. And as you talked about during that episode, the founder stepped down from his CEO role

• 43:53Speaker 02

  after becoming the wealthiest person in China, because he knew about the risk and the optics that it could cause him and how it could get his company in trouble.

• 44:03Speaker 01

  I feel like what happened to Jack Ma a couple of years ago was it changed not only to how people outside of China perceive the policy, but even people inside of China. I think Jack Ma basically overstepped at a time where even a lot of founders in the country thought that China is more capitalistic than it wants to admit it is. And that basically these multi-billionaire founders have a lot of say in how the economy should do. And after Jack Ma happened, people know that they don't have as much of a say as they thought. And to me also, I gotta admit, it very much showed that, you called it suffering from success, which I think is kind of fitting for this. The more successful a company gets, the harder it is to invest. And that's usually when the compounding happens, right? I mean, when we talk about MS, for example, the best moment to invest in this company

• 44:47Speaker 01

  has been when it's established as a top-tier luxury brand, when it's doing business, can grow 10% a year and just compound. And that's increasingly difficult if you operate in a market where exactly that success sort of gets you into the crosshairs, which again, is something that probably a lot of people should have known. I mean, we just talked about what happened, especially the political problems that came up in 2012. But I feel like people just forgot about it after these very good years of 25% growth in the luxury industry and basically growth all across the tech sector in China.

• 45:18Speaker 02

  Well, speaking of difficult markets and macro, especially as we're thinking about luxury houses, I mean, how has everything that has happened in the Middle East impacted these businesses? Because I would definitely imagine a not-so-subtle hit. You see these very flashy places like Abu Dhabi and Dubai, where you'd imagine there's a lot of luxury spending going on.

• 45:39Speaker 01

  I feel like just by the topics that we covered today, which is basically going from one market to the next and figuring out why it struggles, kind of shows you why luxury has a hard time today. But actually, the Middle East is only about 5% to 10% of the luxury market or spending in general. So depending on how you account for it, but it's not a lot of the market. So it's about 4% of the MS sales and about 9% for Rich Ma, which is the highest exposure of any big luxury group. So on paper, I would say it shouldn't move the needle. The problem, though, is that that region is basically the one everybody was counting on going into 2026, knowing that China struggles and MS grew there last year, I think it was about 15%. And the other companies were growing quite good as well.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  So they thought this might be the country or sort of the region that basically balances out China. But it's not only about that region generally. The Gulf customers are also important for European sales, especially in cities like Paris, London and Milan, because when it's, you know, 45 degrees Celsius at home, it's a nice little change, I've heard, to make their way to Europe and then spend money at LVMH or MS in those cities. And in France alone, sales dropped 3% in the first quarter for MS. And to a large extent, that's because that customer base basically wasn't there anymore. So the good news is that it seems like this is slowly improving, at least that's what brand ambassadors are telling us. But most companies in the region, despite seeing improvements month by month,

• 47:03Speaker 01

  still don't fully know how it will turn out over the next couple of years. So again, if you just look at the companies individually, Rich Ma was basically already back to growth. In the Gulf, by June, domestic demand in Saudi Arabia and Qatar came back fast too. And it's sort of the tourism-dependent markets like Dubai that are still slow and probably stay that way for quite some time. And also what the stock market is in the US and the property market is in China, in the Gulf, that's oil. And oil is obviously doing quite well, sitting at about $100 at the time of us recording this. So it's not like anybody is actually getting poorer. It's just that there's a lot of uncertainty. Everybody stopped flying and obviously when those flights will come back at some point, all the money that people still have and want to spend should also go back into the luxury market.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.

• 47:52Speaker 02

  You know that sinking feeling when a meeting ends, everyone's nodding along, and two days later, you realize that nobody wrote down who was doing what? That's why I use Granola. Granola is an AI-powered notepad that makes your meeting notes useful. It captures what happens in your meetings and it turns it into clean, structured notes with decisions and action items pulled out and made easy to find. On days with back-to-back calls, like guest prep and team check-ins, community calls, I used to spend the gaps cleaning up messy notes and trying to remember who owned what. Now I stay in the conversation and weeks later, everything is searchable in one place. Once you try it on a first meeting, it's hard to go without. You can try it totally free.

• 48:37Speaker 02

  Head to granola.ai/wsb. That's granola.ai/wsb to get your time back. Go to granola.ai/wsb and try it on your next call. Interested in futures trading and looking for a place to get started? With Plus500 Futures, you can explore some of the world's most active markets, all from one easy-to-use platform. Trade futures on popular assets like the S&P 500, Nasdaq, oil, gold, Bitcoin, Forex and more. Whether markets are moving in crypto, commodities or indices, there's always something to follow. Plus500 Futures is designed to make trading straightforward. The platform you can access wherever you are, right from your phone. And you can get started with a minimum deposit of just $10.

• 49:22Speaker 02

  Not ready to trade with real funds? Try the free unlimited demo account first and explore the platform without putting real money at risk. Backed by nearly 20 years of experience and trust by millions of customers worldwide, Plus500 gives you the tools to stay connected to the futures markets. Visit us.plus500.com to learn more. Trading in futures involves risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. Not all applicants will qualify. Plus500, it's trading with a plus. This September, I was in New York for the Intrinsic Value Conference. The talks were great, but what I kept thinking about is what happened around them. On Friday night, about 20 of us crowded around a long table at a family-style Italian spot near Times Square. Saturday, we did it again.

• 50:07Speaker 02

  And Sunday morning, a group of us were still debating Socrates over breakfast before everyone headed home. Many of the people at those tables had only known each other from our calls in the Mastermind community. That is the community I host with Kyle Grieve and Daniel Manca. Each week, we get together on live calls to dig into markets and individual businesses. We bring in fund managers, operators, and authors as guest speakers. And a few times a year, like New York this fall and Omaha every spring, we meet in person. If you want to think in decades alongside people who do the same, apply for free at theinvestorspodcast.com/mastermind. If your application stands out, I'll be the one to reach out to you personally.

• 50:52Speaker 02

  All right, back to the show. What's actually carrying the industry right now is the US market. It's about a quarter of sales for LVMH and a fifth for Hermes. And it grew 15% for Hermes in the first half. And as you just said, you sort of have the opposite effects as in China. And the stock market here has done phenomenally well in the past few decades. And AI has only fueled more growth recently. You have many AI-minted millionaires. And by now, we almost kind of take it for granted, but the S&P 500 has once again returned these whopping returns of 16% over the last 12 months. So despite some of these other macro headwinds, you still have enough people on the top end who are not impacted by the kind of other headwinds globally and can afford to spend on luxury, at least in the US.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  And they also don't have to fear any policies or let's say, public perception as it is in China.

• 51:43Speaker 02

  I think that's fair. And obviously, the tariff situation has calmed down to some extent too as well. I mean, there was a moment when the Swiss watch tariff was 39% and that exports basically collapsed for two months. And now that tariff is down to 15%, which is the same as for many EU goods. And basically, the brands have just priced in that tariff. So really, the biggest macro risk right now might be the Fed raising rates and whatever impact that that has on financial asset prices in the US.

• 52:14Speaker 01

  And probably if we, for example, talk about tariffs, once again, it's primarily hitting the aspirational buyers, right? If you, as rich as most of the MS customers are, you would also not care if you have to pay a bit more because of tariffs. It sort of adds to the fact that fewer people can actually buy those goods, which in luxury is always a good thing. But especially for the companies, what has not been a good thing is the currency situation. But 80% of our master sales are outside of the Eurozone and nearly all of its costs are in France, so basically in euros. So LVMH is, I think, obviously in a similar situation, being a global brand but operating in France. So when the Euro strengthens, as it did for most of the last 18 months, which I also know because I get paid in dollars but I spend in euros, that is not good, right?

• 52:58Speaker 01

  And the Euro was basically getting stronger against every other currency that you can compare it against. And that's why MS grew 6% at constant currency, which is still quite strong, mid-single digit, in the first half, but only 1.6 reported, so significantly weaker. And that's also, you know, while LVMH reported revenue fell 3%, while the underlying business grew 2%. So I think that's a pretty severe impact that one should at least think about when you look at the numbers of those companies. And on the profit side, it only gets worse because the costs don't shrink with the revenue. So LVMH lost about 700 million euros of operating profit to currency in the first half alone and expects that this will be a billion euros for the entire year.

• 53:38Speaker 02

  Well, how about we go from the macro picture to something of a more micro picture and look at what worked and didn't work for these companies in their respective segments? And so one of the more interesting segments right now for LVMH is wine and spirits, right? Alcohol consumption, especially in the US, seems to be in something of a sustained decline with Gen Z consuming much less alcohol per capita than other generations did in the past. And Gen Z is easily the most broadly pro-marijuana consumption generation, perhaps as a substitute for alcohol in many cases. And if that's their vice of choice, even for celebrations, I mean, that is not a great sign for LVMH's brands like Moet or Dom Perignon.

• 54:21Speaker 02

  And there was this pretty cool poll by Gallup that started tracking alcohol consumption and trends amongst Americans going back to the 1930s. And so last year, 54% said yes, they enjoy drinking alcohol socially. And that is the lowest number ever recorded by Gallup in their polls. So for most of the last 80 years, that number was between 60 and 70%. And it's not just that old people have stopped. The share of millennials and Gen Z who drink at all has fallen about 10 percentage points since 2023. So US spirits revenue fell 2% last year to about $36 billion. And nearly every category within it was down.

• 55:03Speaker 02

  And the only thing that has grown was canned cocktails. That was up 16% and I can attest, I have seen those, it seems like everywhere, definitely rising in popularity. But I really think heavy drinking has lost its cultural status with younger people, at least compared to the way it once was in the past. And just generally, they drink less often. And when they do drink, they want something specific, maybe a canned cocktail, something that fits the occasion, something with a story. But they're not always just drinking to drink.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  We probably go deeper than we should because it's a small part of the business. But I sent you this survey before because I found it just so interesting. And basically, cognac got hit the hardest by far. And then tequila is the only thing that grows a lot. So that's sort of the underlying trend. And at first, I just thought it might be a random outlier and that just alcohol consumption generally declines. And maybe there was one or two years where more people drank tequila. But then I sort of remembered all the celebrities that in the last few years suddenly started tequila brands. And I think that's always a good indicator of knowing where the market is currently moving. And they also, some of them at least, sold them for billions of dollars. So what happened is that the US has historically accounted for over 40% of global cognac sales. And the US and China together and combined are 80%.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  So basically, it's two countries completely dominating the market. And Hennessy was the biggest brand, but Hennessy's US sales, two retailers, went from 5 million cases in 2020, so just five to six years ago, to less than 3 million last year. So that's a 40% drop from the peak. And the division has had three consecutive years of revenue decline. So it's not looking good for cognac at all. And at the same time, tequila took over the spot in both music and entertainment, which is why we got all these celebrities that I mentioned launching their brands. You have George Clooney, who actually sold Casamigos, which was his brand, to Diageo for $1 billion in 2017. And then after that, you had The Rock, Kendall Jenner, LeBron James, all of those people coming out with their own tequila, which again, I find kind of amusing.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  And it sort of became the new status string. So at the same price point as cognac and basically also aimed at the same consumer, but a lot more, I'd say, with the time going than cognac, for example, appears to be. So it's not that people stopped drinking expensive spirits, it's just that they switched what they drink.

• 57:22Speaker 02

  I think that makes sense because the luxury thesis should also apply to alcohol, right? So even if overall consumption is lower, people will still buy the finer things, you know, the special bottles, because it's more about experience and tradition and social clout than really anything else.

• 57:39Speaker 01

  I thought it's probably a similar debate to aspirational versus the top 1%, where the top 1% demand might not change as much, but overall volume is significantly lower. And then, you know, the top 1% won't be able to make up for all the lost volume. So if I have to look out in the future, for LVMH specifically, I would still believe that there will be lost volume overall and that part of the business won't do too well. And then also what added to the profit decline is that Hennessy, and this is another interesting fact, was sitting on a lot of inventory when demand slowed down because you have to plan so far in advance due to the years that it takes for the cognac to be ready, that it's just a huge problem for them. So they laid down inventory for, you know, the 2020 and 2021 boom.

• 58:22Speaker 01

  And then when demand fell 20% just a year later, they were basically sitting on years of stock. But a good part of the damage, and that's also part of the truth, was self-inflicted because under the previous management, the division pushed through big price increases, basically what you also mentioned in terms of the leather segment where at some point it's just so expensive that most of the aspirational buyers are not spending that amount of money anymore. And then you also had something that reminded me of Nike, where they tried to go more into this direct-to-consumer retail push, and that didn't work out as great. And now you have, you know, trying to figure out how to get back to growth, a lot of acquisitions, which once again, didn't work out. And now you basically changed the man at the top to sort of try to figure it out. Again, if I were to have to make a guess, I think the overall segment will just get

• 59:07Speaker 01

  less important over time.

• 59:09Speaker 02

  So that's why Alexander Arno, Bernard Arno's son, who's the CEO of LVMH, he was sent there to work on this and he's been the number two in that division since the start of last year. And they've cut 1,200 jobs, which is about 10% of the workforce. And they settled the Chinese anti-dumping fight by raising prices in China by 10%. So basically the duties there don't apply. And then Hennessy is already launching ready to serve cocktails, which are its first product in more than 260 years that contains anything other than cognac. And that tells you just how seriously they're taking the rise in demand for tequila. And there are some first signs of progress here.

• 59:54Speaker 02

  The division grew 5% in the first half of this year and profit was up 11% mostly because VSOB, which is an acronym for Very Superior Old Ale. That product is recovering in China and the US is still weak and expected to stay weak this year for them.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  So basically, all of what they're currently trying to do is their attempt to not become more relevant, which is basically my base case. But again, I think the declines here are also not that important because due to the pretty bad business in the last couple of years, it basically already went from contributing about 15% to LVMH's operating profit in 2019 to just under 6% last year. So even if you believe that there's a secular decline for alcohol and that will continue, it just doesn't move the needle or the share price of LVMH much more. And then also Diageo, which is sort of an outset brand, owns a third of that division. So LVMH shareholders don't even get all of it.

• 1:00:49Speaker 02

  And I think what moves the needle significantly is really just fashion and leather, as we've talked about. We mentioned how there are these overarching trends, but maybe we take a look at the current numbers in more detail. And in 2021, this segment ran an operating margin of almost 42%. And then that fell to just under 41% the next year. And then in 2023, it was 40% and then 37% in 2024 and then 35% last year. And now it's 34% in the first half of this year. And so that's seven percentage points of margin gone in five years on the segment that makes up three quarters of the group's profit. So this is operating leverage, working in reverse.

• 1:01:33Speaker 02

  And LVMH has really prime real estate, the best addresses in the wealthiest cities in the world. So we have fewer Chinese or golf customers that are showing up to your storefronts on busiest streets in Paris. I mean, you still have to pay rent for that prime real estate.

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  And management has actually said in an earnings call lately that they need about 3% to 4% of growth to get back to positive operating leverage. So we see margin expansion that goes beyond the top line growth, basically. So apparently the stores, the staff, the marketing and all the other costs grow at about 3%, which is what I'm getting from this. And that is what LVMH, sort of the yardstick that they need to outperform to get extra dollars to come in at a much higher incremental margin. Ultimately, though, we could talk about a lot of numbers for both companies, which I sort of feel like we have done. But I think we both agree that currently what's happening to MS and LVMH is primarily a weak macro environment. They're not technically losing their brand power, even if there are trends like people going for more traditional stuff in China, for example.

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  I think you will have that in most places of the world eventually, but especially for the top tier brands. I don't think they need to be afraid of that. So you could argue that some LVMH brands will be hurt by that Chinese trend because they may be not in the top tier anymore. But especially for MS, which is actually why I prefer MS in general, I don't expect any bigger problems. And not only because of China, but because the highest tier of luxury has just proven to be much harder to disrupt. But also I know that's personal preference. I know some people would, for example, prefer LVMH over MS because it's technically more diversified. I would say that before we go to the valuation, which at some point we should get to, we should also spend some time just figuring out where exactly we are in the luxury cycle.

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  Because it's pretty clear that there is a cycle going on and we talked about a dozen numbers that just keep going down. So at some point, we got to be at the bottom, right?

• 1:03:26Speaker 02

  We're definitely a few years into this cycle, even if it maybe doesn't feel like it yet. And so the personal luxury market peaked back in 2023 and LVMH's core segment has now been negative or flat for seven quarters. And we're three years past the peak there and roughly two years into a contraction. So there has been a significantly longer pullback than during the financial crisis or COVID. We saw really just one year dips each time. And really the only comparable stretch for the luxury industry is the Chinese slowdown of 2013 to 2016 that you mentioned earlier. And even measured by that standard, we should then be close to the end of the cycle.

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  But as we all know, and I know it's a bit cliché, history only rhymes, it doesn't repeat itself. So I don't know, I think this time it's a bit different because we have this Chinese financial crisis that's certainly different from the old day collapse, but it's also hanging over the Chinese economy. It's not like in 08 where basically the Chinese central bank had just pointed its way out of the crisis, which is basically happened in the US back then, but it's still there. It's less abrupt, but people are at least feeling like they have less time. They are paying off mortgages instead of spending money in the economy. And that's just a much slower process than what happened in 08. So I think it will just take a lot more time. And the consensus among analysts is that home prices in China will probably fall another 4% to 5% this year and then stabilize in 2027.

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  And there's also, I would say, a historical rule of thumb that I found useful, which is that when you look at property downturns across countries, they typically last five to six years with a price correction of about 30%. And China's downturn has started in 2021, so this is year five or six. And the correction's already been bigger than that 30% average. So that doesn't mean it's over necessarily, but it does mean we're quite late in the cycle, or at least we should be. And what's probably the most uncertain situation right now is the Gulf region, where last year, again, many luxury brands felt like this is the market to be in, that's going to balance out China. That obviously didn't work out. And I think it's very uncertain when we'll see more sustainable and significant change in that region.

• 1:05:34Speaker 02

  Well, it's no secret why the Gulf economies have been disrupted. And the unknowable question is just how long that's all going to last for. And I tend to be an optimist at heart, which would have me say that things will probably simmer down. But that optimistic mindset I've learned can look very naive in hindsight. I mean, I certainly didn't expect the Russian buildup of troops along Ukraine's border back in 2021 and early 2022 to actually lead to an invasion and a ground conflict in Europe that is still raging four and a half years later, right? So I was very much too quick to dismiss that concern. And what I know is that most times it's true, the worst cases are avoided in geopolitics, or at least in this post-World War II period they happen.

• 1:06:18Speaker 02

  But things can also go from bad to worse very quickly when you already have a hot conflict stirring. So you're certainly not going to see me making any predictions about when oil sales and tourism are going to normalize for the Gulf states.

• 1:06:34Speaker 01

  I think what the last, let's say, five or six years have proven to me is these conflicts, once they started, they go on for longer than you would imagine. I think that's what we've seen in basically all of the conflicts that unfortunately started in the last couple of years. So I think that's just a part of the investment thesis where we have to assume a bit more uncertainty. And that's also why the stocks trade where they are. And I think what's also interesting to sort of change the picture of what we look at is just how luxury stocks tend to perform when the bottom of such a cycle has actually come in. So assuming this has happened, what could we expect going forward? So historically, European luxury stocks have outperformed the market by 9% to 12% in the 12 months following a consumer confidence bottom.

• 1:07:16Speaker 01

  And when confidence is as depressed as it is right now, luxury tends to be the one best performing industry in the year after. So at least that's a positive outlook for where it could go.

• 1:07:26Speaker 02

  With all that said, how about we get to the valuation section and try to determine what is the intrinsic value of these businesses?

• 1:07:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's time. And I would say we start with MS. When I first did a model or built the model for MS, I mostly varied the exit multiple for each case because you have a base case, you have a bull case, you have a bear case. And I mainly wanted to show the risk of investing in a company that was trading at, back then, a multiple in the 40s, which is obviously quite high. And I would say that worked out quite well since a big part of the stock's decline that we've seen in the last couple of months was due to the multiple going down from the 40s to the low 30s. So severe, let's call it 20%, 30% slowdown just in the multiple. And now I thought I wanted to test something else. So this time I assumed the exit multiple would actually remain stable at where it is right now, which is 32 times.

• 1:08:16Speaker 01

  And then the only thing I changed were the growth rates for the top line and then the margin assumptions. So in my base case, I expect a 7% to 8% revenue kicker until the end of the decade. And then growth in the next two years is likely going to be in the mid-single-digit range, so not that much. But I do expect high single-digit to low double-digit growth if we talk about 2028, 2029, 2030. So that's when I have to assume that the cycle is ending. And then MS is very stable when it comes to margin increases. Even now in this bad time, the margin, as we said earlier, didn't go below 40%. So assuming we see slight increases there in the future, I personally have EPS to go at a kick of about 10%. And then we can also not forget about the dividend that MS is paying.

• 1:09:00Speaker 01

  So while the yield is low, which is something that we discussed last time that we pitched it, it is growing quite quickly and significantly. And so it can add at least a bit, let's say, half a percentage point to your return. So long story short, at a price of about 1,300 euros per share, I think we could expect a 12% to 13% return, given these assumptions, and we are at 1,400 euros right now. That's basically where we're standing.

• 1:09:22Speaker 02

  Well, I am finding myself increasingly on the fringes of being a luxury shopper, not necessarily for myself, but thanks to my wife. And so I would say I'm at least better able to maybe appreciate why spending on luxury is so durable and appealing to so many people, more so than I ever was in the past as sort of just a value investor. So I do have a greater appreciation for what makes a company like Hermes special and how powerful the storytelling around their brand is and how they've also managed to grow without diluting their brand quality or by turning into a conglomerate like LVMH where they're just acquiring other brands. So this is probably the closest I've been to being interested in buying shares of Hermes.

• 1:10:07Speaker 02

  But before we make a decision though, how about we look at LVMH?

• 1:10:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, so in my base case for LVMH, I basically used your old model and then I updated the numbers and some of the assumptions, obviously. So I have the company going sales at about 3% to 4% Kegel, which is pretty low if you just compare it to historical rates. And that's primarily because I think it will take them some time until they can actually start growing again, at least meaningfully. And as we said earlier, 3% to 4% is where we see at least some operating leverage again. That's at least what the management team is saying. So I have margins growing at little, but not a lot since growth will primarily be coming in 2028 to 2030, so it's still some years out. And if you put all of that together and you put a multiple of 20 on it, which is also where the company is trading right now, actually it's closer to 18 or 19 times, you would get a fair value of about 350 euros.

• 1:10:54Speaker 01

  And since we also get dividends and the dividend yield is much higher for LVMH compared to MS, just because of the valuation here, the expected return from today would be about 11%, given these assumptions.

• 1:11:07Speaker 02

  And that is a bit short of our 12% hurdle rate that we target for. So where does that leave us all?

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  Yes, maybe I'm too obvious about it, but I think LVMH is more or less out of question for me personally. I think it can be a good investment from here, but I don't think the brand strength will get any better in, let's say, the next decade, whereas when I think about MS, I think it will get better over time. And I also think that the growth outlook for the top 1% will become better and better. Maybe it's not growing at 8% to 9% for the next 10, 20 years, but even if we get to mid-single digits, that's something that I definitely prefer over the 1% that we've seen in the aspirational buyers. And when I look at some of the products of LVMH, I mean, they are selling surfboards at like 15K, where I'm asking myself, who buys this? I don't even think it's sort of a luxury to any extent.

• 1:11:55Speaker 01

  It's probably for singers, entertainers or stuff like that, but it doesn't to me signal the same thing as MS. I don't think they would do that at any point. And I should also say that if you're more interested in the company's philosophy, for example, right, you should definitely check out the original pitches where we got significantly more in that sort of stuff, whereas here it's a bit of an update of what happened since then. So long story short, I think MS just proves to be a better company in the long term and it has been growing for the longest time. So if I would want to buy a company, it would be MS, but I should say that I'm just looking for the time and I don't think it's here yet, where there's actually blood in the streets, as Buffett would say. And I don't know, 25 times earnings, I don't think it's there yet. MS, you're still paying 30 plus times earnings.

• 1:12:39Speaker 01

  So I think I would want to buy it when I actually feel like the sentiment around is not good anymore and people are not telling you, hey, let's look at LVMH, let's look at MS. They are at historical lows and the quality is still there. I think I look for a bit more of, let's say, a trumble in what they're actually experiencing.

• 1:12:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, I agree with you there. I actually remember reading an article recently about how Hermes was trying to make a serious push into watchmaking to be kind of perceived of the caliber of maybe a Rolex or at least to try and rival them. And for a long time, they haven't been taken seriously, even though they have made huge advances in their product quality. And part of the problem that's holding them back is people just treat the watches as one of those entry level purchases that you can make to prove yourself worthy of receiving what they're really after, which is the Birkin bag. So it'll be interesting to see how Hermes can expand into these new areas. But overall, I do think it's a pretty incredible business when you think about what they've

• 1:13:37Speaker 02

  been able to do and the storytelling they've been able to cultivate around their brand. And so at times it does feel like maybe there's been blood in the streets, but not as much as we'd want to see for it to be obviously a point of capitulation for the bulls that would create this kind of generational buying opportunity. It would get us really excited about luxury. And for me to invest in luxury, I think that's what I would need, right? Because even though I feel as though I understand the industry much better than I once did. And so I would say I'm structurally bullish on it. I mean, there's certainly been evidence that Gen Z prefers to spend more on experiences than on luxury wear, and that is sort of a challenging trend for the industry globally, I think, going forward.

• 1:14:19Speaker 02

  And on that point, I just don't love the fact that things would look much worse if luxury companies hadn't aggressively taken price in recent years. And I think that does speak to their pricing power, which is one of the attractive things about investing in luxury, but the decline in sales could have looked a whole lot worse. And with luxury items now being so much more expensive comparatively for aspirational buyers, they've sort of backed themselves into a corner where they've just raised the price of entry to being completely inaccessible. And so they've protected earnings in the short term, but that's come at the expense of future growth in many ways, right? I mean, they've kept their income statements from completely falling apart, but now they're as dependent as ever on the top luxury spenders while overall volumes have just been very weak.

• 1:15:03Speaker 02

  And so you could argue for maybe some mean reversion eventually, and I think that will be true, but we might not see the benefits of that for who knows, several more years, maybe. So I wouldn't be shocked by any means if there was more pain ahead for the luxury houses. And I think it's a decent setup to invest in these companies, but not one where things are so clearly in our favor that I would want to step into an industry that I'm generally a bit uncertain about investing in.

• 1:15:27Speaker 01

  You know, I'm going to admit, I generally thought when I started looking into these companies and I told you that I will, you know, be covering LVMH and MS again, that I would find something that gets me more excited than it actually did. Like I looked at all of the numbers, I looked at the stories, I also listened back to our original episodes, and I think it all makes a lot of sense, but I just couldn't find anything that got me really excited about the outlook, especially for the next couple of years. And that basically made me think just generally about when would I actually buy a luxury fashion brand? And I think the problem that I found is I want to buy them at a point, and I said that before, when no one is calling them a great opportunity anymore, when they're actually trading at cash flow multiples that are, let's say, 20x for MS, for example, right?

• 1:16:09Speaker 01

  And at the same time, I think about what would need to happen for MS to trade at such a 20x multiple. And it would probably be so bad that the entire thesis for buying MS is gone at that point, right? I don't know if that would mean that the brand, for example, would have to suffer significantly and how that could look like, maybe just an example, it would never happen, but let's say they open up a fabric in, let's say, Vietnam, right? And they're basically shifting the heart of what they do in France to some other country. There has to be something so significant that I almost can't imagine that it wouldn't materially take away from, you know, the brand value to a larger extent. That as we know from Lululemon, that's not the game we want to play anymore, investing in a brand, especially a fashion brand, that is not doing as well anymore.

• 1:16:51Speaker 01

  And the optimal scenario obviously would be that there's a major crash, you know, a macro crash that just sweeps a company like MS without actually the brand getting hurt. But even then, I'm sort of asking myself, there would likely be so many bad opportunities in such a big crash outside of luxury and fashion and MS, that I probably would still buy other companies. And although I'm more bullish on the sector generally than you, I think this just makes it significantly harder for me to buy any of these companies at any stage. And maybe it's just that after looking at Nike, Lululemon, you know, Moncler, which is a company we covered too, and now LVMH and MS, maybe the fashion space is just not for the two of us. You know, even if it's luxury and we sort of understand their different dynamics, I

• 1:17:34Speaker 01

  just was to some extent surprised that I couldn't get myself more excited about these companies. Anyway, we talked for a long time now. With all that said, I would think that it's best if I now close the episode with a quote by who else than Bernard Arnault. And he said, quote, "In business, I think the most important thing is to position yourself for the long term and not to be impatient," which I am by nature and I have to control myself. Maybe we're a bit too impatient. Probably if you want to buy one of these companies right now, it's a good time because definitely the luxury sector is not doing good and I'm highly confident the brand will survive. For us personally, for all the reasons that we just gave, it's not an investment that we want to do today. And with that said, I hope you enjoyed today's episode and we will see you in the next one.

• 1:18:18Speaker 00

  Thanks for listening to TIP. Follow the Investors Podcast on your favorite podcast app and visit theinvestorspodcast.com for show notes and educational resources. This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not provide financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. The content is impersonal and does not consider your objectives, financial situation, or needs. Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal, and past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Listeners should do their own research and consult a qualified professional before making any financial decisions. Nothing on this show is a recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell any security or other financial product. Hosts, guests, and the Investors Podcast Network may hold positions in securities discussed and may change those positions at any time without notice.

• 1:19:02Speaker 00

  References to any third-party products, services, or advertisers do not constitute endorsements, and the Investors Podcast Network is not responsible for any claims made by them. Copyright by the Investors Podcast Network. All rights reserved.