Fashion Weeks & PPR beat inflation woes

Despite the inflation lying ahead consumers,

the ongoing NYC and London Fashion Weeks, together with the luxury resilience shown by PPR boosted FashionUnited Top 100 Index to 1260.09 Thursday.

The rise of 1.79% for the international fashion benchmark was supported by a buoyant New York Fashion Week which just handed the flow to its Londoner sibling, starting this Friday.

Asian stocks rose today to their highest in a week as demand on higher yielding assets increased on expectations confidence will improve in Europe and the leading indicators will rise in the US, giving more evidence of a recovering global economy. Best exponent of the Asian recovery was Fast Retailing that posted a 1.3% rise, heading the Fu Top 100 Index Winners chapter. Also Indian-based Rayon Bombay Fashions gained by 1.51%.

Another winner for the session, PPR, the French owner of Gucci and online retailer Redcats, reported profit for 2010 that beat analysts’ estimates after sales of luxury goods surged in the fourth quarter. Net income rose to 964.5 million euros ($1.3 billion) from 950.9 million euros, Paris-based PPR said today in a statement. Profit exceeded the 933.4 million-euro average of nine analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Earnings before interest and taxes, excluding one-time items and figures from divisions that were sold, rose 24 percent to 1.53 billion euros.

The company expects “robust revenue growth” in 2011, it said. PPR has been reorganizing to focus on luxury goods and sports brands. It spun off African distribution unit CFAO in December 2009, raising 806 million euros in France’s biggest initial public offering in two years. PPR agreed on Jan. 31 to sell furniture retailer Conforama to Steinhoff International Holdings Ltd. for 1.21 billion euros, and it plans to dispose of Redcats and the Fnac retail chain. “PPR’s luxury division offers one of the best earnings growth outlooks in the industry,” Antoine Belge, an analyst at HSBC, recommended just one month ago.