Greece Jewelry Brand Folli Follie Hongkong Closes Store

The Greek jewellery brand Folli Follie closed all its stores in Hongkong and severed all its 60 employees in Hongkong.

Because of its insolvency in Hongkong, the brand has applied for automatic winding up. In view of its Asian business across Hongkong, mainland China, Japan and other countries and regions, DDT consulting has been appointed as the liquidator of the Folli Follie parent company FF group.

"FF group's 12 stores in Hongkong will be closed today, and the withdrawal will affect the employment of 60 employees," said Lai Deren, vice chairman of DDT China. He attributed the withdrawal to the deteriorating economic environment in Hongkong in the past six months. He said, "many retailers have recently applied for liquidation. We will deal with matters related to Hongkong first. For other regions, we will see whether there are customers in the local stores. "

FF group's other brand, Links of London, said the brand store will also be temporarily closed for further notice. Folli Follie has five stores in Hongkong, and Links of London has seven stores.

Folli Follie was founded in 1982 by Dimitris Koutsolioutsos and his wife. He currently owns 35% of the company's shares. China Fosun international acquired 9.5% of FF group in 2011 and increased its holdings in May 2018. It is now its second largest shareholder and holds about 16.4% of the shares.

The company was established in Athens in 1982. It is currently undertaking a debt restructuring of $338 million. It has just passed the bankruptcy crisis before the outbreak of the new crown virus in February and restructured some creditors.

In 2018, when the accuracy of Folli Follie's financial statements was challenged by hedge fund investors, its chairman and founder, Dimitris Koutsolioutsos, resigned. According to a survey conducted by Alvarez & amp; Mars, the actual sales volume of the group in Asia is about 90% lower than that originally reported. At that time, Koutsolioutsos was still its largest shareholder and was charged as one of the heads of the 2017 false financial statements. George Koutsolioutsos, the former CEO and founder of Folli Follie, was also forced to resign as a board member in December last year. In its most brilliant period, Folli Follie has been involved in 17 markets in the Asia Pacific and the Middle East, with up to 185 sales outlets in mainland China and 20 in Hongkong.

But since last year's Hongkong society has been in turmoil, sales of its brand in Hongkong have been poor. Despite a year-on-year decline of 42.1% in March, sales rebounded only 36% in April, but this is the fifteenth consecutive month of decline in brand sales.

Since luxury brand Prada decided not to renew its rental in Hongkong last year, LVMH group and Swatch group also closed stores due to local tourists' traffic declines. According to the Hongkong tourism board, only 4100 tourists visited Hongkong in April this year, compared with 5 million 570 thousand in the same period last year. With Tod, s and Roger Vivier and other high-end fashion brands and jewelry brand Chopard and Harvey Nichols, a department store in Asia, the disgrace Company Limited (Dickson Concepts) also said on Monday that the company is facing the most challenging market environment in history.