(Filed Under wholesale Lingerie News). Agent Provocateur sales rose 36% for its fiscal year ended March 29, 2014, from “£39m to £53.1m” (or from about $59 million to about $80 million at current conversion rates) according to a company release. “For the second year in succession, EBITDA increased by over 50% year on year, growing from £6.2m to £9.6m” (about $9.4 million to about $14.5 million).

3i, a UK-based investment company with almost $20 billion in assets under management, bought a controlling interest (reported at the time as an 80% interest for £60m — or $91 million at today’s exchange rates) in the lingerie firm in 2007. Last summer, press reports said 3i had hired Goldman Sachs to explore the possibility of a sale of Agent Provocateur, with suggestions that the price could go as high as 200 million pounds (approximately $336 million).

According to the company release, the expanded sales and earnings were due to “Performance driven by robust LFL sales [comparable store sales], an acceleration of global store openings, continued online success and the launch of the diffusion range, L ’Agent by Agent Provocateur.”

Agent Provocateur listed some key statistics including “LFL sales ahead of last year by 7% on a constant FX basis” and the fact that “Online sales increased by 30% year on year.”

The company pointed out that during its fiscal year, “Boutiques were opened in Paris (3 stores), Cannes, Strasbourg, Toronto, Shanghai, Beijing, Mexico City, Atlanta, Perth and Brisbane, as well as new franchise stores in Moscow, Antwerp, Bucharest, Kuala Lumpur , Jakarta and Almaty.”

The company explained that in the period since the end of its fiscal year, from April through December, 2014 “additional boutiques have been opened in Cheng du, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York, Toronto (2 stores), Berlin, Macao, Sydney (2 stores), Melbourne, Beijing, Calgary and Adelaide together with further franchise openings in St Petersburg, Istanbul and Seoul. The boutique in Sydney was Agent Provocateur’s 100th store opening.”

In addition, “New boutiques in Long Island, Dallas and New Jersey are on track to open in late 2014 and early 2015. Beyond these locations the business has committed plans for further expansion in 2015 across the US, EMEA and Asia Pacific.”

In addition to launching its first L ’Agent by Agent Provocateur boutique in New York late last year, the company has “two stores planned for London and Los Angeles” in 2015.

According to Garry Hogarth, CEO, “Agent Provocateur delivered good results in the year to the end of March 2014,” adding, “Since March we have continued to perform well with our focus on international expansion and our 100th store opening in December.”

By the end of 2014, Agent Provocateur had, according to the company, “100 stores located in more than 29 countries around the world including the UK, USA , France, Germany , Spain, Italy, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Russia, Turkey, Dubai, Qatar, Lebanon, Malaysia, Poland, South Korea, Canada, The Netherlands, Belgium, Ukraine, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Romania and Australia.”

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Published 01-28-2015 by Nick Monjo