LuxExperience Propels Strategic Transformation With Mytheresa CEO Transition

LuxExperience, the Germany-based operator of virtual online luxury fashion department stores, just announced the appointment of Francis Belin as the new CEO of its flagship Mytheresa brand. LuxExperience CEO Michael Kliger, also doing double-duty as Mytheresa CEO, will turn over the reins to Belin on January 1. That will free Kliger to focus on getting the group’s flailing Net-A-Porter, Mr Porter and YOOX brands up to speed—the collection of YNAP brands acquired in April from Richemont, also including The Outnet outlet site.

In-coming CEO Belin most recently served as president of Christie’s auction house operations in Asia Pacific and brings previous experience with Swarovski and Richemont. His transition from art to fashion retail comes with unique challenges. Fashion retailing runs at a faster pace, serving a broad range of customers with diverse tastes in style. The art auction market, by contrast, operates at a more measured pace, selling one-of-a-kind pieces to a personally cultivated network of collectors.

Yet this is precisely what makes Belin an ideal choice to lead Mytheresa forward: his deep understanding of high-net-worth individuals worldwide, the very customers that Mytheresa depends upon.

“With Francis, we have found an exceptional leader, who is renowned for his consumer-centric focus, global mindset, delivery of excellent results and collaborative leadership style,” Kliger said in a statement.

Year of Change

Finally, Kliger can turn over the day-to-day responsibilities of running its high-performing Mytheresa brand, which grew 8% to bring in $1.15 billion (€988.5 million) in gross merchandise value in fiscal 2025, ended June 30, and get its larger and struggling NAP/MRP and off-price businesses on firmer ground. Reporting segments NAP/MPR generated $1.3 billion (€1.1 billion) in gross merchandise value last year, and off-price produced $944 million (€808 million).

All told last year, LuxExperience net sales reached $3.4 billion (€2.9 billion), including nearly $200 million in other.

Mytheresa, NAP/MRP and off price shipped 8.8 million orders with Mytheresa’s average order values at $893, NAP/MRP at $937 and $337 off price.

Profits Challenged

However, bottom line results were challenged. Mytheresa reported a positive adjusted EBITDA of $52 million (4.9% adjusted EBITDA margin), while NAP/MRP remained underwater and off price was a real drag on profits. NAP/MRP adjusted EBITDA was down $8.4 million (-0.7% margin) and off price lost $112 million (-12.1% margin).

Overall, the three reporting segments had a negative adjusted EBITDA of $68 million (-2.1% margin) and at the close of fiscal 2025, it guided on comparable profit levels in fiscal 2026 between -4% and +1%.

Fixing The Off-Price Business

LuxExperience has moved quickly to correct its flagging off-price business. In October, it sold The Outnet brand, which generated $300 million in net sales last year, for $30 million to The O Group, operated by Joseph Edery and Ritesh Puynjabi, with expectations the deal will close early next year. That will leave YOOX the only brand in the company’s off-price segment. YOOX delivered $616 million in net sales last year.

Once The Offnet is off its plate, Kliger said, “LuxExperience will fully focus its resources in off-price on creating the lean operating model required for YOOX in order to regain growth and financial strength.”

He added, “It will allow us to accelerate the overall transformation plan in regards to an efficient infrastructure platform for Net-A-Porter and Mr Porter.” Key to that is migrating Net-A-Porter and Mr Porter’s tech stack, which is ongoing.

Transformation Just Getting Started

Now that LuxExperience has divested The Outnet, it can focus on absorbing the NAP/MRP and YOOX brands, quite a mammoth undertaking. Acquisitions of any kind are complicated, and the challenges are magnified when a relatively smaller company acquires a larger one.

In fiscal 2024, Mytheresa reported revenues of $972 million (€841 million) and Richemont took a $1.5 billion write-off aftter divesting the four brands. At closing, Mytheresa reported 800,000 active customers, while NAP/MRP had 1 million and 1.8 million for the off-price brands.

Immediately following the YNAP acquisition, LuxExperience laid out its long-term strategic plan, specifically to reach $4.6 billion (€4 billion) in net sales by 2030 and adjusted EBITDA of about $350 million and between 7% and 9% in margin.

In its just-released first quarter 2026 guidance, it expects year-end gross merchandise value in the $2.8 billion to $3 billion range, and it raised the lower-end of adjusted EBITDA margin between -2% to +1%, so it’s got a long road ahead, especially on the bottom line.

While first quarter net sales, ending September 30, declined modestly to $663 million, against a comparable $671 million first quarter last year, net losses increased from $27 million last year to $114 million this, driving its stock value down by nearly 9% the day after reporting.

Uneven Performance

In the first quarter, Mytheresa continued to generate strong growth, with net sales up 12% to $261 million and adjusted EBITDA of $9.1 million, compared to $3.4 million last year. Adjusted EBITDA margin grew to 3.5% from 1.4% last year.

However, NAP/MRP net sales declined 11% to $245 million and off price, which included The Outnet in reporting, was off 17% to $137 million. Both reporting segments also had a decline in profitability. NAP/MRP reported a negative adjusted EBITDA of nearly $17 million (-6.9% margin) and off price had negative adjusted EBITDA of $25 million (-18% margin).

Nonetheless, TD Cowen’s Oliver Chen remains confident in LuxExperience’s progress in its turnaround plans and reiterated its Buy rating for the company.

“We are encouraged by management’s progress in integrating and streamlining Net-a-Porter and Mr. Porter (with gross margin up 130bps), as well as divesting the outlet banner. We remain confident that management is on track to achieve adjusted EBITDA margin of 7-9% and GMV growth of 10-15% over the medium term,” Chen wrote in a research note.

To that end, LuxExperience laid off about 700 employees post-acquisition and is in the early stages of reducing SG&A expenses across the company.

Path Forward

Mytheresa’s continued growth is impressive against a personal luxury market that will contract 2% at current exchange rates in 2025 and be flat on a constant currency basis, according to Bain. That makes Kliger’s top priority to get Net-A-Porter, Mr Porter and YOOX up to speed after years of languishing under Richemont’s ownership.

The turnaround strategy rests on three pillars:

New Leadership

Kliger’s first order of business to return Net-A-Porter, Mr Porter and YOOX to growth was to establish its leadership teams. Mytheresa’s North America president, Heather Kaminetsky, was promoted to CEO, Net-A-Porter. She joined Mytheresa in 2021, and before that she’d spent three years with Net-A-Porter through 2016, during its peak years before it was acquired by Richemont in 2018 and began its decline. She’d also spent nearly six years with Barney’s, so she knows the ropes.

Toby Bateman, a founding member of the Mr Porter team, through 2020, has returned to the brand as CEO. And Mirko Nobili, previous COO of YOOX Net-A-Porter, will take the CEO lead at YOOX. In addition, Mytheresa’s CFO Martin Beer, CTO Philipp Barthold, COO Stebastian Dietzmann, and chief data and analytics officer Gareth Locke will assume expanded responsibilities overseeing those LuxExperience functions.

Clear Brand Differentiation

The next order of business was to differentiate the brands so that they complement rather than compete with each other.

In luxury, Mytheresa serves “wardrobe-building high-end customers,” while Net-A-Porter is an online destination for fashion-forward, trend-focused luxury customers who value its authoritative “editorial voice” in luxury womenswear. Mr Porter appeals to a similar profile in luxury menswear. And all three brands focus strictly on full-price selling.

YOOX is the accessible, value-priced online destination offering last season’s fashion, discontinued items and other discounted designer fashions.

Unlocking Synergies

The synergies to be realized are impressive. Remarkably, there is little overlap in brands, geographies and customers among the groups. However, in the luxury reporting segments, Mytheresa and NAP/MRP generate about 40% of sales from what are defined as “very important/top customers,” yet most of the brands’ highest-spending customers are unique to the brand.

In effect, the three luxury brands fish in different ponds. Only 10% of customers appear on both Mytheresa’s and NAP/MRP’s lists, and just 8% among their most valuable clients. YOOX, meanwhile, has its own set of customers, sharing only 8% with the luxury groups and a mere 3% among top-tier customers.

In the brands carried, Mytheresa features some 300 brands from established luxury brands and 55% of sales are generated in Europe. NAP/MRP carries over 700 brands, from “elevated contemporary” to luxury fashion, with a trend focus on emerging and niche luxury brands. About half of NAP/MRP sales are generated in North America.

Overall, in luxury womenswear, there is only a 35% overlap in brands, and in menswear, a mere 25%. In other words, some 280 Net-a-Porter brands and 270 Mr Porter brands are not carried by Mytheresa.

Early Innings

As CEO Kliger noted in the earnings call, this is just the first quarter in LuxExperience’s turnaround of Net-A-Porter, Mr Porter and YOOX. He feels the wind at his back as he shared with me:

“We are very pleased with the outstanding results of our Mytheresa business but also the improvements we have made at Net-A-Porter and Mr Porter. We have appointed a very talented and experienced new leadership teams at both businesses. Already we can see the first signs of the commercial turnaround with higher average-order-values and more spend by the top customers. For calendar year 2026, we already expect a return to growth at Net-A-Porter after years of decline.”

Net-A-Porter’s return to full-year growth is better than announced during the first-quarter earnings call—at the time, NAP was expected to turn positive by the second half of the fiscal year, but to come in with a low single-digit decline for the full year. So NAP’s sales must have picked up sharply over the last couple of months.

Now his team must work the same magic to get Mr Porter and YOOX moving in a positive direction.

See Also:

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