Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Zegna Group second Capital Markets Day, broadcasted live from the New York Stock Exchange. I am Francesca Di Pasquantonio, Director of Investor Relations of the Zegna Group. Before we begin, some boring stuff. I need to point out that in the course of today's presentation, we may make certain forward-looking statements. Our actual results may be materially different from those expressed or implied by those forward-looking statements. All such statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those discussed in our SEC filings. I refer you to the safe harbor statement, which is included on page two of today's presentation, and of course, this session will be governed by that language. With this, I will hand over to Gildo Zegna, Chairman and CEO of Zegna Group.
But before doing that, I will invite you to immerse yourself in the world of Zegna Group through a short video. Thank you.
Well, after this exciting video, I hope you enjoyed it. Good morning and buongiorno to everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today, whether you are here in person or you are with us listening around the world. As Chairman and CEO of Zegna, it's my pleasure to welcome you at the New York Stock Exchange for our second ever Capital Market Day. We have a full day, at least a morning ahead of us, and I think that we will be sharing a substantial amount of information. Before that, I would like to introduce our leadership team of the Zegna Group. Gianluca Tagliabue, on my left, Group CEO and CFO, will talk about our financial ambitions today and the key sales and profit growth drivers in the medium and long term.
Rodrigo Bazan, CEO of Thom Browne, will talk about our continued growth plans for this brand as it turns 20 years old this year. Nilly Foster, Head of North America region for Zegna, will talk about our success in the region and our ongoing growth plans. On my right is Lelio Gavazza, a newly elected CEO of Tom Ford Fashion, and I'm sure you are extremely eager to find out more about Tom Ford, and he will surely go over the vision of the brand and how to move forward. And last but not least, Edoardo Zegna, my son, Chief Marketing and Sustainability Officer, will update you on the Zegna one-brand strategy and the rollout of our success across the world.
Now, before we hear from the team, I want to share with you where we stand as a group today, discuss on certain strategic decision, and finally, share with you details of medium- and long-term strategy. Before we begin, I just want to take you this souvenir picture of mine. Actually, I was younger than my son here. It was back in the 1980s. It was interesting because this friend of mine, very smart, anticipated the storytelling of Zegna. Then maybe the follow-up has not been what we expected in terms of storytelling, and I think I must thank Edoardo, that when we decided to go public 2 years ago, thought we have an incredible story to scream, and let's go back. And the...
What, what it reminds me, this ad, is that in America, you have to be bold, and you have to tell, not so much who you are, but what you are doing. And I think that, American are there for results and for execution. So I brought this picture up because I had one dream, and you see the last sentence, and they say, "My dream was the Zegna success, in America." And I must say that a dream has come true today, in what we accomplished, in America. Since, the listing of the group at the New York Stock Exchange, I think it was a, a tribute to our centenary history and legacy in the world... that my ancestors, starting from my grandfather, father, and uncle did.
And in particular, the founder had the vision to transform the company from a mono brand to a multi-brand luxury group, which I have brought into effect by creating complementary brands that are unique and they can really take us to a different level also, thanks to the strong machine that we have in terms of supply chain, in terms of textile luxury platform, fully sustainable and fully traceable. And I think that the fact that we added after Thom Browne, Tom Ford, it shows that this dream is becoming bigger and bigger and will help us create more balanced across geographies and across different product. However, next slide.
You see that we have an incredible territory in Italy called Oasi Zegna. And I think that the road that used to be called Panoramica Zegna started in the thirty, even though the group was born 113 years ago. And it showed our capacity of being resilient, of being transformative, of capacity to give back, and transform us into an excellent execution in whatever we do. So I think that the value that we gather from Oasi Zegna are still very true in everything what we do. I think that the fact that Zegna is one of the oldest luxury fashion brand in Italy speaks by itself.
And it shows that we are already quite balanced in being in 85 countries and with about 386 stores. And as per this year, Zegna shows a penetration of almost 60% of the total revenue, Thom Browne 21%, and Tom Ford Fashion 10%, because we take into account the nine months period since we acquired Tom Ford Fashion in April of this year, and so it's from April to September only. And then we have another percent, and here we are looking at the year to date, that's to September numbers, 10% in the what we call the luxury platform.
If we now move in the complementarity of this brand, I think that Zegna shows an immense capacity to send a strong message in the Quiet Luxury field. Today, Quiet Luxury is very popular and very fashionable in the world of luxury, and we are fortunate to be one of the very few to confront ourself with this opportunity. So I think that what we have executed in the past two years is really marvelous. If you ask me, "Would you have expected to be where you are in Quiet Luxury two years ago?" I wouldn't say that I would have expected to be where we are.
Because I think we came out at the right time, with the right things, with the right people, and we just executed in a marvelous way across the world. Maybe there are some territory, like the United States, they are more ahead of the pack of others, but I see the execution mode is getting really very, very strong. And another dream I had is one day, if our business school wrote a case about Zegna, in fact, they did, because of this brand transformation and this capacity to execute what you promised. So, alongside Zegna, I must say Thom Browne did a marvelous job as iconic and modern tailoring.
Rodrigo will tell you more about it, but I think that, you know, the discipline and the dream of Thom Browne in that regard with a unique vision as an iconic brand, I mean, is very interesting, and I think it will continue evolving. The addition of Tom Ford, I mean, I would say, represented the best of luxury glamour, I think adds an interesting piece to the equation. And I think that it will create a strong value to our brand portfolio and to the value of our group.
We, we think that, you know, it could deliver an IRR in excess of 20%, over the length of our contract, certain that, we will execute accordingly to the long-term plan of Tom Ford Fashion. I think that the good thing about this brand, complementarity and supported by a verticalized supply chain that is unique for the Made in Italy and for the luxury world. Now, if you see these slides, it's interesting. I think that this, this slide shows the weight of different product category by brand, and you see the opportunities that really we have. Let's start with menswear. That is the category best represented right now by the three brands.
I think that, you know, menswear, ready-to-wear, I mean, surely for Zegna is forte, but this represents a forte for Thom Browne, and represent a good chunk, about half-
Mm-hmm
... of the total Tom Ford Fashion business. You go to womenswear, and you see that they represent a smaller portion compared to men's, both in Thom Browne and Tom Ford Fashion. But this lies the opportunity, and that's one of the big reason why we decided to acquire Tom Ford Fashion, and sign a license, 30-year license with Estée Lauder, was to take advantage of this incredible opportunity in womenswear and in leather accessories that you see as the third category, where Zegna is doing pretty well. You know, the Triple Stitch winter version that I'm wearing today to keep my feet warm is an incredible success, and I think we are at the beginning of the journey, to make Zegna stronger in the accessory world. So does Thom Browne.
I think that Thom Browne is the beginning of a journey with the accessory, and Rodrigo will tell more about it, and Tom Ford Fashion, of course. Lelio will show how much we can do. Not only on product category, but also geography. We have an incredible opportunity. I don't want to give you the impression that we diminish the force of Zegna in America. You see that this is the ranking of market as per 2023 per brand. For Zegna, APAC, Asia is number 1, EMEA is number 2, considering that the EMEA takes into account the Middle East area, which is extremely strong in terms of growth, in terms of profitability, and third, North America. So I don't want to diminish the importance of North America.
That's why we invited Nelly to do a presentation on the reality. So I think America is gaining a strong market share and is growing up, you know, thanks to the Quiet Luxury. Similar Thom Browne. Thom Browne, Asia, you know, very, very important. EMEA, quite important. North America, still room to develop. Now, we go to Tom Ford. It's exactly the opposite. North America is number one, EMEA is still number two, and the APAC is a big opportunity. So I think that what I'm trying to show you, that, I mean, this aggregate of luxury brand will bring us lots of opportunity to be, in the midterm, a better group in terms of balance in geography and in balance of product category. However, the addition to those two brand puts us in a different, scale. Scale is very important.
I remember when we had IPO, the first word I said, "We are here because of scale." Because if you don't build scale, you are not meaningful, and you cannot make it, regardless what you do. So here, we're talking about scale. Look at the market. You can see that the total soft luxury market, this is a Altagamma Bain study, shows that the market potential is EUR 185 billion, okay? With Zegna, we only had we could only fish in a market of EUR 65 billion, men's soft luxury. With the addition of the other, the Brown and the Ford, we can add another EUR 120 billion market.
So that shows, I mean, what this new group will be able to confront itself with, and the opportunity that we can gain in a market that is three times what we had, from 60 to 185. Then, I think an interesting thing is to talk about our integration capability and the integration challenge that we have among the three brands. I think that I must say that there are four ingredients here that makes a difference by being an integrated group. I start from manufacturing supplies. There is no fashion if there is no an industry behind. And so I'm very proud to say that Italy represents, if not the best, one of the best industry of fashion, because a good part of the product are created, produced, and delivered by us.
Made in Italy, textile and manufacturing platform. This will be put at the disposal of the other three brand. As a matter of fact, take Made to Measure. Made to Measure is our Formula One, okay? Unique. We are leader, leader, and leader of this project. We put this at advantage of Tom Ford from the beginning, and Tom Ford is an important made-to-measure business. We put this at our advantage of Tom Ford, same. But not only men's, we can create a made-to-measure reality also in the women part. Last but not least, the textile action platform. Fabrics, what I call materia in Italian, is key.... Without materia, you cannot go into fashion, you cannot go into luxury. So the capacity to innovate the materia, to come out with new fiber, with new finishing, with new-looking fabrics.
Look at what we did with the traceable linen and cashmere. It's unbelievable. Knowing the goat and knowing the sheep, where the material come from, and having this guarantee of quality, I mean, is unique. So all this is available not only to Zegna, but to every other brand. The other thing, shared cost. I think that when we talk about scale, I think there are certain cost, shared services, which we can take advantage of and can make, you know, our life easier, if you want, not more difficult among the three brands. The third one is talent. Talent, and we have seen, I mean, we have two talent here. I'm not sure from Lelio and from Nilly, that joined the party recently.
I don't know if we had joined unless we were the group we are, and more will come on that. So we have become a more attractive entity. Forget about compensation, because our strategy, and our energy, and our passion to go forward, and the possibility to give them freedom to create their own personality and create the value within the group. Last, but not least, distribution. Distribution is a fundamental ingredient in the success of luxury brand. If you are not well located, if you are not in the right environment, forget about it. You can make it. Traffic, interest, and, you know, and, and, and, and, and the-- all that, I think the fact to go to real estate lender, whether it's China or America...
I mean, I had a couple of big, big meetings this week, and presenting ourselves with three brands, "Okay, you're talking to three, not to one. Let's join forces." So this is a very important part of us going forward. Now, where we are, I think that in looking, practically, on where results, I think we can proudly say that we are one year ahead of our IPO plan. And I think that on the left part of the chart, we are, practically, we have achieved the EUR 1.5 billion in sales. We promised beyond fiscal year 2023, that was achieved one year before in 2022.
And also, I can say that we are also ahead of the midterm financial ambitions that we share in the last capital market day in May 2022 in Oasi Zegna ? I think that the strategic priorities of the group are clear, and I want to show you in a nutshell the three ingredients that will be then brought forward by Gianluca and Talia Buonomo in details. We are aiming to achieve compounded revenue growth in the medium term of over 10%, with an adjusted EBIT growing at compounded average growth rate of 20%. This, if executed properly, which we will do, will generate a significant amount of cash, even taking into account the considerable investment.
Because to bring where we need the three brands, we need to consider invest both in marketing and CapEx, which we will. Now, in terms of next slide. In terms of more specific about each brand, we expect sustained market share gains for Zegna on the back of the success with Zegna One, Zegna One brand strategy. And I remember by a gentleman present in this room, which I will not mention, I asked him: "What is the most important question to ask yourself going forward? Store productivity." You heard them right, and we are well ahead of our goal that we put forward, and that makes us very proud because that forced us to do everything super well, okay? That's surely one thing.
We have reviewed the goal by saying that we want to improve store productivity another 10% per year, on top of the 50% increase, which we did record in 2023, and that was anticipated, as I said, ahead of time. Thom Browne. Thom Browne, we have an ambitious goal, too. We wish to double the revenue over the medium term compared to 2021. I think that it will... I would mention this as a controlled phase of growth, to say the least. I think that we have possibility to gain market share and retail growth, we surely will be one important part of it. Rodrigo will tell you more about it.
Finally, Tom Ford Fashion, the new, our new child, that makes us very proud, and we want to grow its revenue by over 10%, compounded and midterm, through its relaunch. Now, the brand is significant, bigger than the business. This is the incredible part, and there are ample opportunities to leverage the group synergies to fuel its growth and make it, I'd like to be bold-... make it one of the 10 largest luxury brand in fashion in the long term. Long term! Don't ask me how many years. But we have the possibility, because the brand is so powerful. Just a matter to add pieces to it and to execute in a fantastic way, as we have proved with Zegna. We have the proof. Two years ago, I stood up and said, "Guys, this is a dream.
Give us a chance." Now, the dream has come true. We are ahead of the pack. Now, the game is to do a similar thing for Tom Ford and keep doing a good job with Thom Browne. Aggregate of luxury, this is the power of this group. Okay, I want to close with a couple of slides on what makes us unique, and I don't want to look presumptuous. I just want to talk facts, okay? The number one thing is that we are a unique and authentic group, represented by a family, which I think that has done a lot for our territory and for the best of Made in Italy across four generations. Because I'm proud to say that the fourth generation is well represented here today.
I think the sustainable and traceable and traceability ethos of Zegna derive from the founder's very own value of environmentalist and social responsibility that explain its authenticity. So I think that sustainable is something natural. We didn't buy it; it came natural. It has been part of our blood, and so, I mean, we transfer it. From generation to generation, we transfer from brand to brand. This is, I think, what makes it, I mean, very, very important. The second point, what makes us unique, is the Italian industry roots, which we said. What I like to call, "From sheep to shop," is a very powerful strong saying. Nobody else can say it. I don't care whether you are French or American retail. From sheep to shop, from farm in Australia, down to ultimate bespoke service wherever, utilizing our made-to-measure platform.
The third thing is, the fact of, we are, complementary with the three brands, and so we have an opportunity in womenswear and in textile accessories throughout the three brand. And, the other advantage is that we can really, complement each other also with the synergetic effect as we have shown it. So last but not least, the fact that we are, an independent Italian company, can make us, you know, more attractive to talent, to come and create your own story within the family. That is very, very important. So, in a nutshell, all this uniqueness, I think that, comes back to our values.
The quality that our clients expect from Zegna, Thom Browne, and Tom Ford Fashion can be achieved only by using the best wool, textile, and the best hands. Hand means the capacity to create the best product. And I think that you can get these values only if you care for the natural world and the communities you operate in. And last but not least, I would say that my grandfather knew all this 100 years ago, and this value are the bedrock of our success today. Thank you very much, and I hope that you will enjoy the presentation of the next speaker.
I'd like to introduce Lelio Gavazza, an old friend of mine that I'm very proud him that represent the best of Italy and the best of luxury experience and will do, I'm surely, a super job in relaunching the Tom Ford brand at his best. Thank you, Lelio. I welcome you.
So good evening, everybody. Good morning, everybody, sorry. Good evening for the one that are not, not here. First of all, Gildo, thank you very much for your warm welcome, that it was, for me, a kind of, a return back to this amazing group and this amazing family. I know Gildo since, more than 14 years, when, in 2007 to 2009, I was working for, for him, and then I decided to step in LVMH Group, where I worked for 14 years. And in these 14 years, of course, I lead the expansion of Bulgari brand in China first, Europe, Middle East, and Africa. To step up in the last six years in expanding the brand at worldwide level, I was in charge of retail and sales for the, for the group.
Of course, I believe that going back after 14 years will be an added value to bring in Tom Ford Fashion, in a way that I can just leverage on my knowledge and competence as I develop, and to make sure that Tom Ford Fashion will be, of course, one of our fast growing brand. I would like to start making a first statement since the beginning. With the aim to leave to bring this brand to be one of the top luxury brand in the world. This is something that has to be clear. This is a long-term vision, but this is the way we are working here together to make it happen.
Of course, to do that, we need to do the things step by step, because a luxury brand need to be nurtured and developed in a sustainable and healthy way. In particular, the brand desirability needs to be nurtured on a daily basis. We don't have to rush, but we need to be very straightforward in what we want to achieve in the next future. Let's talk about our ambition. Ambition is our mantra, the way we're gonna use to bring the brand in the next few years. Our ambition is to create a global luxury lifestyle house that blend innovation with artisan craftsmanship, delivering an alluring, modern aesthetic across diverse, yet unified, offering that prioritize luxury, product excellence, and impeccable fit.
So this will guide us in the next, in the next future. Of course, with this ambition, we're gonna move in what are the Tom Ford Fashion position. As Gildo mentioned before, the brand is bigger than the business, today. We have a solid brand position, provided also by what has been done in the past, in the past years since the formation of the brand, and this is spread in all key media. We have an absolute product excellence at high price position that will allow us to play in the luxury playground, without any doubt. We have an opportunity to develop regional brand presence in different markets, mainly in EMEA and Asia Pacific. Today, the brand is strong in America, but not in the other markets.
Last but not least, we have an opportunity for expansion in the women's ready-to-wear business, in particular, when we talk about shoes and accessories, where today we have a lot of room to go. One point that has to be clear, 2024 is a transition year, so it is a year where we make significant investment to set the foundation to the solid growth path projected to the strategic plan for Tom Ford Fashion. So of course, as I mentioned before, step by step is important to achieve what we would like, we would like to achieve. Today, we're going to talk about a little bit company overview, about the pre- and post-acquisition. We're going to talk about Tom Ford Fashion position and product portfolio, growth strategy plan, and medium-term outlook.
Let's go into the presentation to discover a little bit more about the strategy. Talking about the Tom Ford Fashion through the year, I have to say that looking at the story of Tom Ford, the legacy of the brand is particularly incredible, given the fact that it's only 18 years. It was founded in 2005. Tom Ford started with a visionary idea of Mr. Tom Ford and Domenico De Sole, and the launch of menswear in 2007 brought Zegna into the picture since the beginning. And from the time, Zegna was already making the success of this brand because they were manufacturing and licensing all the product.
Then, of course, in 2010, there was the launch on the women's wear with the famous show in the New York store. It was a show that was unbelievable because everybody talk about it. It was closed-door show with only 100 guests invited, and that set up what will be. What it was, and what will be the base for the future of Tom Ford: exclusivity and high-end positioning of the brand. And we will continue to maintain this, of course, this position. And in 2022, Tom Ford decided to step back as a creative designer, and Zegna took over Tom Ford Fashion, and of course, he moved from what he was a licensee to manage exactly Tom Ford, Tom Ford.
So what we would like to do since April 2023, 28 April 2023, is to continue the success of the brand. Continue means to manage the growth of our Tom Ford Fashion in this future, just recalling what has been done in the future and amplify the brand as much as possible. Let's talk a little bit about Tom Ford today and overview where we are today. The first thing that I will recall from this slide is, of course, a tremendous opportunity for Tom Ford Fashion that is an undeveloped business while the brand perception is much higher than what is, in reality, the number that we are providing.
If you see some of the numbers we did in five months, from the end of April to the end of September, EUR 139 million revenue. Of course, what we can understand from these numbers is that the brand is over EUR 300 million revenue in 2023. We have 680 employees. We have boutiques, only 51 boutiques, directly managed, and we have basically only 9 countries with our boutiques directly managed. Last but not least, the business is today 70% men and 30% women. Are we-- Then, of course, what is the sense, the sense of Tom Ford? The sense of Tom Ford is what will guide us in the future. We mentioned already what is our ambition.
We're going to focalize in the DNA and the code of the Tom Ford. The DNA is representing confidence, representing fashion visionary, and represent iconic profession... while the code that we're gonna use in the next year will be glamour, refined elegance, and mysterious allure, allure. This is something that is important to recall and to manage for the next step of the development of the brand. I will launch now a video of two minutes that you recall the best part of the fashion show that we held in September in Milano, and it was the first fashion show managed, designed by Peter Hawkings, the new artistic creative director. You can launch the video. Thank you. So, two minutes of video, but it was two-minute, very intense to show you what is Tom Ford.
Of course, seeing the clothing that was on the catwalk, you can immediately understand the tone of the brand and how the brand would like to stand in the luxury world. Of course, here report that I want to go through, but we report the comments of some of the media. There was echoed by a lot of comment of our consumer the next few days in the showroom. The show was fantastic. The show was in Milano, the city where Tom made his first success in Gucci at the beginning, and it was, of course, a good beginning of this new way of Tom Ford fashion. Let's see now a little bit more detail on the deal.
What was the deal before, and what has been the deal post-acquisition of Tom Ford Fashion by, by Zegna? First, before the deal, you can see in this graphic. You can see in this graphic that represent how Tom Ford Fashion business was structured before the acquisition. In simple term, Tom Ford managed the design of everything, while Zegna, through licenses at the time, was managing menswear product from the development through the distribution. Of course, from April 28 of this year, situation change, since that time, Zegna has been in charge of the end-to-end Tom Ford Fashion business, from the collection creation and development to merchandise, to production, and as well, retail and also sales distribution. What does it mean?
Does it mean that, since April 28, Zegna got a licensee for 30 years, and in these 30 years of manage of the license, we have the exclusive right on core fashion product for both men and women. That is menswear and womenswear, leather good and accessory, fine jewelry, underwear, sportswear, and denim. And of course, you have the possibility to make an expansion. An expansion can, can go in the children clothing and accessory, in home design product, what we might call Tom Ford Casa. But as well, when we talk about jewelry, we can expand for what we have today that is a kind of bijouterie in fine jewelry, really with gold and diamond. And that is something that, given my experience, might be on the pipeline in the next, in the next future.
So the brand today is basically coordinated with three main actor. So we have, of course, the CEO of Tom Ford, Guillaume Jesel. We have the Creative Director, Peter Hawkings, Peter Hawkings, and of course, we have my position, the CEO, Tom Ford Fashion. That we, of course, ensure a congruence and coordinating the activity among the three product category. And of course, what I would like to stress, that we work very well together with the only ambition to make this brand flying and to make it stronger and stronger into the market. Let's see a little bit of Tom Ford Fashion positioning and, of course, a product portfolio.
First of all, in terms of positioning, we are at the top of the luxury pyramid. We are positioning in the segment that we call the absolute luxury, where we are already well-established in that category. Our aim is to further elevate toward the brand, making Tom Ford Fashion a fusion of attributes that refine the shape of luxury, glamour, and as well, the brand ability to anticipate desire of all our consumer. All these, for sure, will give longevity to the brand and will assist in our strategic plan to develop it. We have a unique position as well, because when I look at the timeless segment, we mainly have specialists in leather goods and in ready-to-wear.
While the position where Tom Ford is, is a position where we can easily extend our way of working into the ready-to-wear and leather good accessory, but as well into the fashion business, and this is the basis of our strategy we implement in the next, in the next few years. Here, I report some of the iconic product of the brand. Of course, when we talk about men, we have formal suit, tuxedo, and leather ready-to-wear. Let me say that today, the suit of Tom Ford is the only one that can be recognized from the distance. You see the big lapel, and it's totally different from the other brands. So this is an incredible recognition from all the consumer.
But as well, in the women's business, we have what was a success, and it's still a success, the padlock shoes, the sandal, but as well, the velvet tuxedo. That, of course, recalls the man's design and the evening dress that will bring Tom Ford in on all the red carpet in the last 15 years of the company. And these are the icons where we're going to build the future expansion of the brand. Gildo mentioned that before, the brand is bigger than the reality.
If you look at where we are positioned in terms of media presence globally, you see that in comparison to one of our big competitors that are in the top ten positioning in the world, we already have the following, for example, on Instagram, at the same level, and all the same path we're following in other social media. So we're going to leverage a lot on this credibility of the brand and position of the brand in the world to make things happen in our strategic plan. Just to mention, in terms of product mix, today we have roughly 70% men and 30% women. Of course, the business is the objective is to rebalance this 30% to arrive in a much more percentage close to the men.
But when we look inside of this 30%, only 10%-50% is made by accessory for woman. 10%-50% of this 30% is made by accessory, and this is a tremendous opportunity we have to exploit. Our competitor, most of the time, are 6-7 times bigger than us in this segment, and this is our point of development in the future. Let's talk about growth strategy and plan right now and give a little bit more detail on where we are going to work in the next future. First of all, we have a strategic plan with over 10% in medium-term CAGR. This is something that we will fix and will push in the next year.
We're going to leverage on geographic expansion, because we need to grow the penetration in market that we are not yet developed, mainly Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East, to mention the two bigger one. In the last couple of months, I basically traveled the world with the brand. I was in Korea, Japan, China, Middle East, and America now. Wherever I go, and you talk with landlord or stakeholder in the business, they all are open to welcome Tom Ford. They are happy to see Tom Ford fashion getting stronger, and they are happy to welcome them in the shopping mall with the plan, expansion plan that we have, we have in place.
We're going to enhance the retail experience and clienteling, because we're going to put in a significant investment in our direct ownership store, and we're going to align the channel mix between DTC and wholesale to be a little bit more balanced and to control much more our client. And of course, most important, we're going to implement CRM. Today, CRM is, we don't have any platform. We don't have yet a process that is formalized in this activity, and it's something that is already in the working process to make it happen. Marketing communication is important. We're going to strengthen the brand identity and storytelling of our product to get more information on what we are selling, and most important, brand amplification. I mean, this brand has to be amplified.
We already have a strong backbone base where we can build up on that while we strengthen this, this position. In terms of product merchandise, we're going to rebalance the product mix. We're going to push more on women's accessories and shoes, as I mentioned, before, but we're going to make the basis of retail. We're going to put essential product in the store to ensure that all the best seller will be automatically replenishment, and we can avoid to lose sales. Last but not least, supply chain optimization. We're going to leverage Zegna Group best practice to improve Tom Ford Fashion and supply chain.
Gildo mentioned before, we have a fantastic supply chain in the Zegna Group that we can leverage, and we have to leverage because it was leveraged since 2007 when the brand was launched at by Tom Ford brand itself. In terms of enabling factor, I will be very straightforward on this point. When we talk about product, we talk about Peter Hawkings and what we state in the fashion show in September and what we will reinforce in the fashion show in February. When we talk about accessory development, is a new creative person that has been taken from one of our major competitor. He's already on board in the creative studio since middle of November to design the new collection. When we talk about retail net, is the expansion. I put here some number.
Today, we plan to almost double the number of stores in our net to go in the range of 90-100 stores in the midterm. As you can see, we're gonna focalize a lot in Asia Pacific, EMEA, between 18-22, 12-16 is our Pacific. But as well, we need to strengthen better our presence in America, where there are some locations where we are not yet present, and we need to be much more stronger in that. Reinforce our company structure, of course, in addition of my appointment made by Zegna Group, and in July, and then I joined on the eighteenth of September, we already strengthened the organization.
We're gonna have a new president for America soon on board, coming from one top top brand and top group. We employ already a chief product and development and production that is already on board. He joined in September as well. And of course, we appoint already a president for EMEA market. We need to have in the market the right people to make things happen. Synergy from Zegna, production, negotiation, power business, with the discussion with Lando mainly in Asia, going there as a Tom Ford or going there as a Tom Ford, Thom Browne, and Zegna together, it make the difference in terms of space and negotiation.
A demonstration that these things has been already started, despite only two months of working, we already got confirmation for new flagship store in Beijing, China World Trading Center, in the ground floor, in front, top luxury brand. We already got a confirmation in Paragon in Singapore of a flagship store, and as well, a freestanding store in Roma, a freestanding store in Saint Moritz. And we are gonna move some of our old sales point of sales in concession in 2024 to directly control the brand in a better way. Midterm outlook, of course, top line is expected to increase over 10% compound annual growth in the medium term. And of course, significant contribution will be given by the footprint expansion, new store we're gonna open.
We're gonna have margin improve and best practices and store productivity enhancement. When we talk about store productivity, of course, we plan a high single-digit growth in the medium term. In terms of how we fuel the brand, we need to sustain the medium-term growth trajectory for this Tom Ford Fashion. We're gonna have a significant CapEx investment in 2024, 2025. We're gonna move as well in the year ahead to sustain the foundation of the top-line growth. When we talk, for example, about retail net, or so CapEx for retail, 40% of the CapEx will be for store renovation. We talk, for example, Milan, London, New York, and Los Angeles, where we need to retouch the store and make them more fresh.
But 60% will be the expansion, new store we're gonna open. And of course, investment has been foreseen as well to strengthen the corporate structure. In terms of OpEx, we expect to continue investing in brand equity, brand amplification, to secure the positioning, and of course, take into consideration that in the OpEx, we have as well the royalty that we have to pay for the management of the brand. I would like just to conclude simply saying that in 20 minutes, we passed you a lot of information. Of course, it was a big jump of, or job we did on the back of this, of this few information.
But what it come out from this is a message that the excitement, the excitement that we have as a team and as a group to make things happen. We have in our hands a gem in the rough that we need to expand, and we need to make it happen. Our ambition, as I said before, and I restate again, is to become one of the top ten player in the luxury world in the next, in the next... And this is where we start from, and I'm really happy to be able today to share that with you and to probably share in the next few year to come the progress on this on this brand. Thank you very much. And, okay, I leave, I leave the stage to Rodrigo.
We're pushing here, right? Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, if you have a chance to have some following us from Asia. I would like to take you into the world of Thom Browne in this next 20 minutes. The message I would like to share with you is a confirmation of actions towards what we declared, not only 18 months ago in the capital markets that we did in May 2022 at Zegna, but also what we said about 24-30 months prior, when we did the whole roadshow of the IPO of Zegna. If I was any of you, I would be looking for actions for what we said. If I was any of you, I would be looking for some images that communicate what we said that we're going to do. We will share with you many images in this presentation.
You need to stand up.
This one? There we go. So this is part of a Vogue article recently published on the 20 years of Thom Browne. You have 20 years, you'll see key images that represent a specific moments and individuals that have done a significant difference in the possibility of what Thom had envisioned 20 years ago. To finish with the book that Phaidon published recently, that we took around the world. You will see the first 10 years are largely focused on men's. The brand was all about men's, and the following 10 years is a combination of men's and women's. The brand of women's was launched 10 years ago.... Next image is a very important show for Thom Browne. The first time that Thom took a show internationally, a fashion show internationally, was to Pitti Immagine in 2009.
This is why Thom Browne, this was a very iconic show, and this is why Thom Browne became very popular with key retailers, journalists, and people that understand the world of fashion in Europe, as well as in key markets in Asia, namely Japan, Korea, at that time. The next image is a 2006 shot by Annie Leibovitz on Thom Browne. And if you take a look at this, today, I think you're rather used to this, but at that time, it was rather revolutionary. The pants were very short, the jacket was very short, and it will get your attention, it will never get you as a client. And today, it's actually very reasonable, and Thom has influenced the world of men's from the silhouettes: shorter pants, shorter jackets, and a different silhouette, which represents him in museums around the world.
This is a very intelligent article that Vanessa Friedman wrote in 2017, highlighting, "Is Thom Browne the most underestimated designer in New York?" I actually reread the article previous to this presentation, and I, I quoted myself that we're going to grow 3 times the revenue. We had the potential to be 3 times bigger. We were not publicly traded. There was not so many sensitivities that we have today, what we say, we don't say, but that's actually what happened. With this, I would like to highlight some background to this. In the past 5 years, we've grown 3x, and most importantly, we have balanced our business with a DTC, which is equally important or higher than our wholesale business. Remember, 8 years ago, when I started, this was largely a wholesale business, company.
We have developed a very successful women's business. A business, not only an image, not only shows, but a business. Most importantly, we have a uniquely elevated client behind all this, this growth. It's an extremely elevated client, and it actually is two pillars or two types of clients. It's a VAC, a highly committed client of absolute luxury of clothing, that he or she buys clothing in a very classic, creative, or qualitative way for Thom Browne. That's one pillar, and it's very significant for us. The other key pillar is this, potentially younger client that consumes fashion, that buys the fashionable items of the key luxury brands of fashion and luxury brands around the world. That client buys more of the branding side of their company, and however, that client is also highly committed, multi-items purchase in the first time. On both ends, we're talking clothing, mostly.
On both ends, we're talking about clients that consume bags or shoes, or wear, or come to the stores wearing bags or shoes of the top five luxury groups, brands around the planet, and we can convert them actually to be clients of Thom Browne. I believe that's gonna be the first step towards growth of bags and shoes. Women's gives us a unique opportunity to significantly expand in key markets, namely the United States, North America. I couldn't be saying this three years or five years ago. We didn't have such a strength in the women's business. I believe this brand has endless opportunities. This brand is. It took actually a good ten years to build the brand. It took ten years to expand this into a global business of men's and women's around the world.
We have endless opportunities, starting from the point of view that we have a successful business in women's clothing, in men's clothing, and in eyewear. I named this category because, obviously, Thom Browne's fit is very unique, as you may recognize and know, and that's often one of the comments that we get from analysts about the fit potentially being a challenge to grow in several key markets in the world. So the eyewear category has been successful the last 10 years. We took it fully in-house, as I will explain to you later. We can convert this into a successful business in accessories, in footwear, in kids, as well as beauty. We embark in a key moment where product communication is key to convert the brand awareness into client connection.
I usually wake up and go to bed and work with our teams dealing with four key questions. What is Thom Browne? We are not that well-known around the world, or we were not that well-known around the world, and I need to start from that point of view, that we're not that well-known. So we work hard on making ourselves very well-known. Where can I, where can I buy Thom Browne? So the second point is more distribution because we're not everywhere in the planet. We are very selective in our distribution, wholesale, as well as our stores. We do have 100 stores today, but very selective. But then, people look at us and says, "I cannot wear that. I need to get into a diet.
Maybe it's too complicated," and we do have so much more product than you think, but we need to make sure that we explain to larger audiences the type of product that we have. And the last question is that, "Can I afford Thom Browne?" The perception says absolutely extremely expensive. It's actually stuff with a very high quality of product. That's why. It's actually not that expensive. So the key of our work is to answer those four questions extremely well, so we can do an intelligent path of growth for this company. And with this, I would like to show you an image of Mr. Thom Browne. The one on the left is actually Thom's specific personal outfit. This is a GQ article that was written, and what Thom did is something very simple.
He took jackets, pants, shirts, and he took the highest quality of raw materials. 97% is natural, so the sustainability concept is more than proven with what Thom does. He decided to do it with the highest quality potential of production, so it could be in a vintage store in 20 years' time. His big twist was the proportions. He shortened the jacket, and he did this unique proportion. Now, traditionally, everybody says, "Well, it's actually not that easy to wear because of the unique proportions." On the right-hand side, I would like to show you a comparison that was run by GQ of a, a very important individual that has worn Thom Browne for a number of years, a client of ours. If you have a pic of the name?... Mr. LeBron James. So these are actually proportions of Mr. LeBron James. We dressed Mr.
LeBron James and the Cavaliers in 2018 for 18 different games. This is an organic project. There was no contract. This is actually an idea that was, came as a bit of a joke, as, "Would you like to wear these for all your teams?" We were actually dressing stars at the time. So we dress a team. We, we. And this is actually one of the outfits, like, he started with a long pant and actually chop it off and making short just like the boss, like, with clothing Thom. So this actually destroys the myth that Thom Browne is only for certain body types and for smaller people. The next point is: how did we do women's? Thom had potentially not the best business idea, to launch women's exactly the same way as he did men's. What do you mean?
Well, he said the same product categories: tailoring, shirting, knitwear, and everything that makes the sportswear attitude, and bags and shoes. It's not the easiest way to build a business. We do have dresses, we do have sensuality, and we have a larger audience in this than purely a great tailoring. We're actually selling these outfits, and the team at our stores wear it, and the clients want to buy it, actually. So what are we saying here? Let's go back to business. I don't want to talk about dreams or images also. We reframe the strategic goals that we set out in May 2022, and our ambition is to double revenues from 2021. To double this, I like to talk about clients, and it's easy to grow.
The most important is to grow and taking this substantial amount of clients that we have, that we serve on a yearly basis, either ourselves or key wholesale accounts, and to double that. By taking care of that first pool of clients even in better way. We also are adding the commitment, which is the way we work, to increase the brand equity for the long term and to deliver high-quality, sustainable growth. I'd like to show you an important film.
LeBron James, the Cavaliers. David Harper, Michelle Obama, David Bowie, Quincy Jones, Russell Westbrook. Jesse Williams. Beyoncé. Meghan. FC Barcelona. Desi Ramirez. Tamara Jenkins. Nancy Pelosi. Janet Jackson. Alexander Skarsgård. Diana Taylor.
So hopefully, this can show you the attractiveness of Thom Browne. So going back to business, the key pillars that will drive our plan are certainly product, distribution, marketing, and client value management. What do we say with client value management? We don't refer as CRM. It's a client-obsessed department that we created, overseeing all areas of the business to define the voice of our clients and to strengthen the global client relationships. They include the client data, clienteling tooling that we use, training, client services, and client profiling. Clienteling is usually not used. It was referred to a lawyer as still doesn't exist. It's the art of servicing clients, which is very important. This has been a brand that was built on made to measure from the beginning.
The key pillars to drive our growth is an expansion of reach to new communities, to convert our brand awareness into product awareness, into clients connections. As you can see, our growth is... We're moving from a clear intent to moving to, "I know Thom Browne," to, "I know what I can wear of Thom Browne." And this is the way we built our growth, and it's a client-centric approach towards growth. We're looking for a strategic and balanced path of growth. We continue to strategically drive growth through direct-to-consumer in a very selective wholesale business. We actually use wholesale business for visibility vis-à-vis clients around the world. We don't use it for volume. We aim to have the best representation of multi-category, men's and women's. And in most cases, you would have seen the product of Browne through wholesale distribution.
That's why we continue to do it, but not driving volume there. We want to achieve an even greater balance of distribution, direct to consumer and wholesale. East and the West, men and women. When I refer to East and the West, the absolute values are still that we have a very important business, particularly through DTC in the East. If you look at the quality of transaction, the quality of client behind what we're doing in the West, and the growth, particularly in women's, is truly amazing and does give me the confidence that we can build a very significant business, both in the West and both in women's. These are some images that represent what we do in terms of women's, men's, accessories. I want to continue to develop and improve our network of stores....
We continue to purposely drive growth through direct-to-consumer and a very selective wholesale business. As you can see in the graphic, we are exceeding right now our business on DTC, DTC compared to wholesale. If you put it back 8 years ago when I started the company, wholesale made 90% plus of our business. All our stores are profitable and successful. We are aiming for a strong and healthy expansion of the brand and business. We confirmed the product strategic plans and actions that we're driving to achieve the 40% penetration of women's business. For both men's and women's, our focus will be on balancing seasonal and seasonless product. Just to put it, a parenthesis there, we have a very significant business in seasonal product. I love that. We love that.
That thrives on the way that Tom has created product extremely consistently, the classicism in his design, no change, but evolution. If we didn't have that, it's very difficult to build, A, a retail business, B, a client connection. Outerwear, which is already an important business, it could be a much larger share of our business. We always continue to balancing the tailoring and luxury sports or, or the ease to the brand. We are doing this both in men's and women's. MTM, Made to Measure, is the business from the beginning in men's. We added Made to Order women's very successfully over a year ago. We have over six figures transactions with clients on Made to Measure. We also have custom. We do very spectacular shows. Those garments are asked by specific clients to be converted into custom orders or what we dress sometimes celebrities with.
Accessories and footwear... Penetration of women's is aiming to at least achieve 40% in the medium term. Some of the images that represent our outerwear, what we represent, what we sell, both down and wovens. Other key categories for us are knitwear and shirting and jersey. These are alternative categories to complement what we do in our strong tailoring business. Made to measure, made to order, again, six-figure transactions on specific custom orders, a number of them on a global scale, not only, actually more in the West than in the East, to be precise. Made to order on a global scale, both in North America, as well as in Asia and in Europe. Very committed female clients that want to buy, not this, it's more emotional. It's full customization what we can do in terms of made to order women's and made to measure men's.
I think in deference to other very successful Made to Measure businesses, the client wants to wear this. They don't come and try to cherry-pick what to change of the suit. They want to wear this. In women's, it's a completely different scale of opportunity. Continue to focus on accessories. Some images represent that in both genders, and continue to focus on footwear and kids. This is not a license, it's a product that we've developed in-house very successfully, and this is one of the great ways for us to connect with very significant families. We may not be dressing all of you, but we can connect with your kids, and that's the entry into their world. It's totally timeless, it's the same direction, and it's all managed by us and mostly sold in direct-to-consumer. We further reaffirmed the very successful internationalization of eyewear.
We did what people think is a bit crazy or difficult to do, to bring total eyewear business in-house. We created Thom Browne Eyewear. It's a successful, profitable business. Two new collections already developed in the last 15 months, and we have 120 classic styles that are some of the ones that you may know the brand for. We continue to develop a range of products for our DTC business. This is with the aim of making it more special for you to come to our store and connect with clients. This is some of our home accessories. It was recently presented in collaboration with Baccarat, as well as fragrances and beauty. These are the images of some of our stores, the retail expansion that has included the Milan Women's, Via Sant'Andrea, Qingdao, Kobe, Saint-Tropez, as well as Boston stores around the world.
We continue to expand our retail in North America, our direct-operated, obviously, China, Japan, and we took over July 1 Korea business in a very successful way. Those are 18 stores fully owned by Thom Browne, with a very excellent share of women's and men's business. We continue to expand our directly-operated store network in Europe and the Middle East, as well as franchising opportunity in specific markets in Southeast Asia, and we'll be exceeding 100 monobrand stores at the end of this year, out of which at least 85 are directly operated, with a very strong e-business complement. We continue the conversion of franchises or wholesaling to directly-operated stores, concessions, or hybrid models with concessions. As you see, the path of growth of our stores in the next year is the same path. We quote again here, the client value management.
Our passion is not only opening stores, it's to grow with the current clients that we have in the stores and to grow with additional clients. So this is one of the biggest tool that the stores have: marketing, positioning where we open the store, marketing to promote that store. But once the store is operating, client value management is a fantastic tool to really focus how we grow in a healthy way our business. Marketing, this is a commitment that the board supported in 2020. In the middle of the COVID crisis, we're bouncing back really quickly. They allow us to dedicate a few more percentage points into this.
We committed to, in the last capital markets, to grow at least 10 times the visibility with an equally important share of shows, VIP celebrities and events, social media, influencers, digital marketing, and at least one-third on client local activations, which we're doing. These key partnerships also allows us to get co-marketing, which could be with wholesalers or retailers, such as Harrods, brands, or creatives. What do we say in terms of marketing? Marketing for us is communicate with a product or client intent, and 2024 is the year of intent. Everything we do has to have an intent. Produce product-focused content with broader appeal and complement with local content. All this is to make sure that not only you know of Thom Browne, you know what the Thom Browne story is, but you know what you can wear of Thom Browne.
Some images of the 2023 Met Gala and the key friends of the brands. Let me just clarify, there are some contracts. These are not so-called brand ambassadors. These are friends of the brand, clients of the brands, people, individuals that really respect the creativity, the product, and what Thom does, and decide to be worn Thom Browne for specific occasions. So we work organically with all of them or their teams, and many of them do buy also Thom Browne. Some of the celebrities I quoted in the previous video. These are images of our Victoria and Albert Museum event, launching Phaidon book in October, early October, early this year. Images of our. It was actually did three consecutive collaborations with Samsung, designing the fold phone. These images that represent that.
Images of Serena Williams when she was awarded the Fashion Icon Award, the CFDA, dressed by Thom Browne, and Thom having a fun moment with Nakata, the ex-footballer, in our event in Tokyo. This is because we're doing this in North America, it's very important to highlight the, I think, it's a 10-page profile that was written on Thom Browne in September 2023. In client value management, just to specifically go into this sector, which is very important, how we successfully completed the rollout of our clienting app in all jurisdictions we operate directly, but Korea, which we're launching this quarter, but China, which we're launching next quarter. So this will allow us to have a global client, single client view with reliable and holistic data.
We're on track to develop deeper client insights, seeing common threads across all clients and regions, and the TB clients have an appetite for something unique. We established Thom Browne Curated. This is taking Thom Browne to locations where we don't have a store, and we engage with clients that host us or with specific individuals, and we take the brand for them. We're committed to do this four times a year in all three regions. We are scaling also our global runway with ReSee. ReSee stands for, "Come to see what we have in the runway and potentially order that." We did something quite unique. Thom did a couture show on July 3rd, and we had a crazy idea to do couture appointments the day after. This was a few weeks before.
We had a very successful experience, which showed us that we can have a client, a brand moment or event, in this case, and a client moment, and the clients stayed for hours. They flew from all three regions in the world and come and spend several hours in the showroom, purchasing and selecting looks from that couture show. Rolling out clientele foundations, and most importantly, we continue to hire private client advisors. They are not sitting in a store. These are incredible sales associates that pick up on your interest. It could be through an app, could be through a chat in the website, could be through a purchase that you did of an accessory online, connect with you, acknowledge you, and run very significant transactions with them. So we are rolling out them globally. We are very focused to increase the repeat business from our one-time customers.
This is one of the key steps for us to grow retail. So to summarize our business, we are looking for a healthy and very committed path of growth. As Gildo mentioned, it's a controlled growth phase. Growing is relatively easy. Growing in the control and with brand equity ahead of it is the most important. We continue with very selective distribution. We capitalize both on our very committed luxury client, as well as a more aspirational fashion and branding influence client. Images of our twentieth anniversary event in London, Janet Jackson, and these are images of our event in Seoul, where the first Korean Academy Award-winning actress interviewed Thom at the Leeum Museum on the book. And images of our twentieth anniversary in New York, with Jenna Ortega, for example, who was dressed in attending as a friend of the brand.
Just to summarize what the 20th anniversary meant, 20th anniversary was the book, and we decided to make the book a moment and take that around the world. We touched 6 cities. We did London, Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, New York, and Milan. We did 19 events. We presented 24 archival looks. We had well over 1,700 in these. We had well over 200 top clients that we hosted for specific moments. We had over 300 articles at the time. We have over 200 celebrities and influencers attending this, well over 500,000 likes. Over 750 books actually sold. Most people tell you the fashion book does not sell. It has sold, and Thom signed most of them. Most importantly, we generated 3 times the revenue of the investment, and it was a committed investment. It wasn't...
We traveled the planet to do this. Over 500 social media posts of ourselves and a large audience that was touched in 67 out-of-home placements across 4 countries. So with this, I would like to move into the specific summary of what we're doing. We promised both, like, the IPO on the road show and the client value management, that something, and we have delivered that. We have a successful and growing fashion and clothing business in a unique, very elevated price point based on quality, price, and creativity sector. We can absolutely transform it into an accessories and footwear business. We're seeing our brand awareness grow very significantly in the West, and particularly in North America. We have this great opportunity, not only in the East but also in the West, to convert the brand awareness into product awareness, into client connection.
We represent timeless ultra-luxury or luxury with ultra-luxury. We want to protect this, so the path of growth has to be very specific, and we need to make sure that we set up the terms, and we do the right growth in order for sustainable long-term growth, putting the brand equity first and managing our growth mostly through direct to consumer. Our retail network can easily be expanded into territories. We've proven that over the past years. This is a client-centric path of growth trajectory, where not only we want to grow our elevated client base, but we also want to expand to complementary clients around the world. One wise person once told me that your brand is worth the quality of your clients, and this client is very elevated, which we want to respect, preserve, and nurture. Thank you so much.
Okay, good morning. Please start with the video. So today, I'm Edoardo Zegna, and I will speak to you about a magical brand that was born in an oasis. Everything started 113 years ago with a dream of a founder and a fabric, the best fabrics in the world. There was a time where every single businessman, including probably yourself, were wearing a tie and a suit, and the tie and suit probably was also Zegna. Zegna was the most famous tailor in the world. It expanded in China and America, across the globe. But times change, and we have changed with our customers, always remaining true to ourself, with one single goal: to be always in consumers' lives.
Two years ago, at Capital Markets Day in Oasi Zegna, we asked: Are we the best-kept secret in luxury? We think, we still are. In two years, we did the kind of the impossible, evolving a brand from tailoring to leisurewear. We've been working in creating and protecting the magic, the intangible, a quiet and timeless brand, strengthening our positioning as a men's luxury leader in the industry. And, our strength starts, from our difference. Our difference is Oasi Zegna. This is what sets us apart. We exist because we have a unique and replicable story to tell. We are born in Oasi Zegna, because ultimately, Oasi Zegna is luxury. It's, luxury in its, purest form. So let's switch to the presentation.
But, you know, this story, this beautiful story, it doesn't turn into a legacy if it remains untold. So we wanted to expand this legacy globally, and what you see here is our first Oasi in the world, and the first Oasi in the world had to be in the most iconic square in Italy, Piazza del Duomo. We've taken over, for the next three years, these amazing gardens, where we are bringing a piece of Oasi Zegna in it, both physically and digitally. You will be able to see live what Oasi Zegna is as a whole. This is the Zegna story, and this is clearly just the beginning. Our road is 113 years old.
But in many ways, it just started, and what we really felt it was important is to make sure that we put a sign, a brand mark that you see on the right-hand side here, of the slide, that is, in many ways, the full expression of the magic that is in the brand. This brand mark is present across our clothing and, as I like to say, is the window into our world. But how did we get here? And also, kind of how did we do it so quickly? So we consolidated the three lines. We showed that at Capital Markets Day, we repositioned the brand way higher in position as a whole. But the extraordinary thing is that clearly our revolution was to move from tailoring to leisurewear.
So we grew tremendously the leather accessory business. We grew tremendously the luxury, luxury leisurewear business as a whole, while keeping tailoring in absolute terms at the same level as 2019 and pre-COVID and so forth. So again, we grew the entire business. We grew it in the transition we wanted to do from tailoring to leisurewear, but at the same time, keeping us to be the leaders in tailoring in something we wanna clearly keep holding. The obsession we had in the past two years was focus. Without focus, you cannot figure out who you're actually going to be in the eyes of the consumers. Here, you see, Fall/Winter 2020, Fall/Winter 2023, we cut by 70% SKUs. We consolidated from 11 lines into one line, the shoe business as a whole, and that's also extraordinary as a whole.
And we had one single goal: to become a luxury retailer. And how do you, how do you become a luxury retailer? You become a luxury retailer by finding and creating iconic products that distill the essence of who you are. And then you build and start having some very strong mantras. And so it's a no-markdown mantra that is about starting to put the exclusive product just in our retail business, to strengthen even further retail business as a whole. But clearly, also on a distribution level, we control the distribution. We reduce the wholesale, and we repurposed a lot of the wholesale as a whole. So this is becoming a luxury retailers.
Clearly, in this transition in becoming a luxury retailer, this is the best sort of pie chart that we can look at, and this is a real pie chart. It's not a fake pie chart. In 2019, we were 80/20, direct to consumer wholesale, and in the medium term, we are very committed and convinced we're going to get to a 90/10 as a whole. This is what being a luxury retailer be, is. And most important, the consequence of all of this work is what Gildo said at the beginning, store productivity. We're happy to announce that we have achieved our target we announced in Capital Markets Day of 50% already in 2023, and our ambition is to keep growing 10% year on year. So we are on our road because marketing is ultimately working.
This year data compared to 2019. Our new customer are spending almost 60% more in our stores compared to 2019. Why? Because we have created iconic products that distill the essence of who we are, and, as, you well know, Triple Stitch has been our home run. More than 30% of our new customers are customers, thanks to Triple Stitch. And whoever these customers are that buy Triple Stitch, and I'm spending more than 60% than the other customer that walk in it and buy other products. But, but where are we in Triple Stitch? Triple Stitch is a family, and the family just started. We launched at the end of 2020, our main shoe, the Triple Stitch.
What I'm wearing, I'm behind the podium, so you can't see it, but I'm happy to show it to you. I'm wearing the same shoe that Gildo and Gianluca are wearing. That is our new high-top Vetta. Vetta in Italian means peak. This shoe has launched a month ago and is extremely successful. Our next evolution will be in Q1, where we're launching Second Skin, our most elevated, lightweight, and sophisticated Triple Stitch yet. You will need to try it to believe it. From then on, we'll move into the summer, where we're launching the evolution of what our espadrille Triple Stitch is, and then the family will keep going. In fall/winter 2024, we launch a new one, and so forth. This is the Triple Stitch family, and this is just the beginning. What else?
We believe that a modern luxury brand is built in Lego blocks. A brand is defined by iconic products that distill who you are, that make the brand. These are walking advertising campaign. So what are our Lego blocks? So you see here, we put the 2023 with an index of 1, and we have an ambition, and these are the four, five Lego blocks. Triple Stitch. We still think Triple Stitch is just started. We can still 3x Triple Stitch. Oasi Cashmere and Oasi Linen. We are proudly the custodian of traceability in the luxury segment, and Oasi Cashmere for winter and Oasi Linen, where we're committed for both of them, starting 2024, to be fully traceable. Again, we are just at the inception of this. Made to Measure.
Made to Measure, we intend to remain the leaders in Made to Measure, and the opportunity here is still ginormous. Fourth, Uber Luxury. What is Uber Luxury? Uber Luxury is about the most high-end natural fibers on the planet and creating higher valued products with amazing hand feel and amazing properties. And last, licensing. Licensing is an amazing opportunity to export and expand the brand mark that I showed at the beginning of the presentation. Brand mark that represent the road and a window into our world. So iconic is not just a product, but iconic is also a style, a look, a way of dressing, a leisure look. This is our new look. It's a quiet look that speaks that allows the quality of the product to speaks by itself.
So this is the new way of dressing, and I'd love you guys to come in our store to witness that. But the most proud thing, I think, is about our customer. Who is our customer today? Four pillars. They are younger, they spend more, they come back more often, and they come back sooner. This is data of this year compared to 2019. So let's go pillar by pillar. The Zegna, the new Zegna customer in 2023, year to date, is 7 years younger than 2019. These new customers spend, as we said before, almost 60% more than they used in 2019. Their repurchase rate has increased by 25%, and they come back two and a half less time compared to 2019.
So, we are proud of this customer, and we are proud of this customer because we also figured out a journey, a bespoke journey for this customer that we try to exemplify here. The new customer comes in, attracted by Triple Stitch, and then we bring him up, we delight him, because we believe that luxury is not about transaction, but luxury is about interactions. So, and when we bring him in, we delight him, we serve him in a bespoke way, and then we bring him on the top of the pyramid that is Made to Measure. And when we conquering as a Made to Measure customer, we retain him for life. Now, Made to Measure. This is our Formula One. Retention of our loyal Made to Measure customer is an unheard of 70%, close to 70%.
You know, you could ask us: "Hold on a second, who are these made-to-measure customers? Are they still the old customer who used to buy tailored as a whole?" No. 50% of made-to-measure customer buys luxury leisurewear in our collection. We have the best service in luxury, and this service is here to stay. Top of the funnel. We love top of the funnel. So, and that's where we're going. We're just looking up, we're not looking down. Our top customer that spent more than EUR 50,000 or more than EUR 50,000 yearly have grown 63% compared to last year. And today, 5% of our customers generate 40% of our revenue. And, an even more proud data of this segment, on top of the, of the funnel, the retention is 90%. So we, we hug them, and they are with us, forever.
So how big is this funnel? How big is this pie? How, how big is this top of the funnel as a whole? This top of the funnel is huge. We still just tapped a tiny sort of, like, piece of it. So we're very confident and committed that we know how to hug our customer. Now, I haven't, I haven't finished in the sense that our success of putting service first is exemplified in this slide. We have mastered under one tool, one digital tool that we give to all our sales staff: CRM, omnichannel, stock availability, and AI. And this tool enables all of our store associate to be able to communicate one-to-one with the consumers, because ultimately, the goal of modern marketing is to be in consumers' lives.
So we need to adapt to how they want to shop, to how they want to speak, and how they want to interact with the brand as a whole. I am happy to report, and this is what we committed at Capital Markets Day in Oasi, that today, more than 50% of our revenue is generated by outreach. And the best part about outreach is that whoever is contacted and communicated with this digital tool, as a whole, spends 2x compared to a customer that walks inside the store. This is really what, in our mind, becoming a luxury retailer means, and what means putting service first. And this is the difference between retailing and clienteling. Because retailing, in our mind, is about selling a product to a customer. Clienteling is another animal.
Clienteling is how you make a human being feel. This is different, and this is how we hug our customer. So we have recruited the best customer, but we're now also recruiting the best talent. I would like to pass on the microphone for this section of my presentation to Nilly Foster, our President of North America, a talent that comes from the LVMH group, and she will speak about the U.S. case study, a very successful case study. Please.
Thank you, Edoardo, for the wonderful introduction, and very, very happy to be here today and to give you a bit of some key strategies that really drove the business here over the last few years for the U.S. So the first focus that we're going to talk about is retail. Huge success in retail. Just in brick-and-mortar alone, we over doubled our business. A big part of that came from the success of moving wholesale into concession and into wholesale. E-com also over doubled its business over the last 2 years, mostly coming out of zegna.com, so direct-to-consumer, but also developing wholesale to retail. But how did we do that? Key strategies, 5 in total, really focusing on developing the luxury client, so no markdowns anymore in our retail boutiques was a big part of it.
The next one was really moving wholesale to retail, as I mentioned earlier. After that, network expansion, so obviously continuing to develop a network in the U.S. Key doors, including Saks New York, Palm Beach, East Hampton. Also looking at luxury leisure wear, which was a huge development in the business overall over the last few years, and the one vision that Zegna brought. And then strategic client outreach, which I'll talk about further. So made to measure and actually elevated luxury in total, as you see here, made to measure has been fully developed in the U.S. Huge increases over last year. A big part of that coming from the sleeve units in made to measure, and footwear over doubled in made-to-order business over the last few years.
Bespoke is by far sitting at the top end of our luxury, and it's something that our clients really hold dear. We've over doubled the business from just last year, and it really is developing something that no other brand can do today. And then we have our Uber Luxury segment as well. You're really looking at our top of the pyramid in terms of EUR 12 million, that continues to be developed and really, really developing the top of our client base, and it's also couture. You see that mostly in our tailoring, and that's also showing huge increases and really developing the tailoring business in a completely more elevated way, and our clients really, really enjoy that part of the business. How do we do that?
So as you see here in the graph, everything you see from 2019 through year-to-date 2023, so that doesn't even include December yet, you can see the growth year-over-year of our clients that spend $50,000 and more with us. So that development has been huge. And how have we done that? We've rolled out a new clienteling app over the last two years, so our sales associates can reach out to our clients. We've developed an elite client program, really, really dedicated communication, experiences, delighting, not just locally and domestically, but internationally for our top clients. We've aligned our boutique KPIs, so our sales associates really know what's expected of them, and we also have defined expectations by sales associate, by day, by week, by month, so they know what that outreach really needs to look like.
As you see, it's been hugely successful for the U.S. business. Hyperlocalization. So this is something that Edoardo's definitely touched on and will continue to. We're really going after markets with high net worth individuals. As you see, that includes Aspen, Palm Beach, Hamptons, and we're opening Santa Barbara next year, and this is really going after that client and really defining who we are as a brand. We're also capitalizing on localized experience in those markets so that those clients know who we are and define us as a differentiation. In those markets, when we're building out our stores, we're differentiating ourselves. They won't look like stores that any other Zegna boutique has or any other brand has. Finally, and obviously, most importantly, we can't do this without our top talent, and it's all about people. First and foremost, our productivity is very important to us.
As you see, we've reduced our personnel costs as percent of sales in the last two years. You can also see that we've increased our productivity per head count. Made to Measure, we already talked about, but that was a huge defining moment in terms of increasing our sales, and we've increased our teams as well, certified, specialized in our stores, as well as managers in our key doors, and then also enhancing our Made to Measure development in the corporate offices as well to support that, and that will continue over the next years. And then recruitment, focusing on business-driving sales associates, but most importantly, a huge, huge emphasis on only hiring talent with proven success. And with that, I'll hand it back to Edoardo.
Thank you. So, yes, America has been an amazing success, but, where are we on the road to communicate this new Zegna across the world? China. We use Triple Stitch, our thermometer, to see how far along are we on this transformation, and what you see here is a penetration of Triple Stitch revenue in total revenue. You see here an index, so we index America to 100, and you see two graphs. It's 2023 Q1 and 2023 Q3. And, what you see is that the, the thermometer of Triple Stitch in China is getting pretty hot, in the sense that we have gone from one third to half.
And that is extremely positive in showing us where this entire new onboarding and this new capitalization on bringing in new customers through our funnel is going. Secondly, WeChat. We thank BNP Paribas for this graph. This is brand heat in highest engagement brands across the entire sector in Q3 of 2023. And what is extraordinary, and we're very happy about reporting this, is that we have the highest engagement between all luxury brand in Q3. So again, this is great stride on the fact that the heat is happening and the momentum is happening.
Third point about China that again proves how we are getting to the top of the funnel, and we are getting very close to the top of the funnel, is that we measured here Uber Luxury penetration in store revenue. So which store have the higher penetration of Uber Luxury across their store? Meaning Uber Luxury, just to remind you, is again the highest rarest natural fibers, clearly with the highest ticket and brand value as a whole. So here, we're happy to report that in the top five stores around the world, with the highest penetration of Uber Luxury, two are Chinese. Again, an element to show you how this heat is happening. Last is to show you how the retail China reposition as a whole. The retail China machine is improving greatly.
Here you see, NPS that we track across the board. Clearly, we do not want to release what is our current numbers as a whole, but what we're happy to report is that we've improved since 2021 of 22 percentage basis points. Again, proof of the retail China machine is working and is really moving. My last two slides. Our transformation is working, but we're still very much at the beginning... four real key elements of this new Zegna customer journey that we're very proud to have communicated to you and to deliver on the floor. One is iconic products as a recruiter, two is service, three is personalization, and four is retention.
We talked about Triple Stitch being our top recruiter and bringing in amazing customer, this new customer that we love and then spends more with us. Then we hug him, we bring him in, and we have these amazing tools that we're able to give our sales staff to be able to serve in a super bespoke and luxury way all of our consumer. Then we bring them up the funnel, and we sell them the dream of Made to Measure, and when they get into Made to Measure, they are hooked for life. Being able, as I said, to be able to keep growing the top of the funnel. Last but not least, this is our secret sauce. This is really our superpower and our new sport that we're so proud to deliver across regions as a whole.
We stopped doing events. We start doing experiences. We don't try and create transactions, we try to create interactions. We don't advertise to influencers, we try to dress people of influence. We are not in fashion, we are in the world of timelessness. Thank you. Our road just started. Thank you very much for your attention.
So good morning. Good morning, everyone. Doesn't go back? Yeah. So now that we have heard from Gildo, Lelio, Edoardo, Rodrigo, the strategies and the direction of the brand, now I recap everything, closing the round of presentations, translating all this into numbers, which is my job, and explaining the underlying assumptions behind this, trying to anticipate some of your typical questions. So we are confident in the outlook of our group, and that's why we have set ambitious goals for our future. This is motivated by the strength and the momentum of our brands, as well as the blank space that we see, especially in, into the two Tom brands. And so this is all translated into the numbers.
However, rest assured that we are also mindful about the challenges that are around, so we would label our goals as, on one side, ambitious, but also well-grounded in reality. First, let's start from the top, the top line. How do we see our top line looking forward? First, let's define where we expect to land in 2023. We were coming at September with a growth rate of 23% compared to last year. We expect to grow at the end of the year higher than 25%, which brings us, in mathematical terms, close to EUR 1.9 billion. From then onwards, we are expecting to grow revenues in excess of 10% growth rate per year to the medium term.
This target of compounded medium growth rate of over 10% is in line with our guidance of EUR 2 billion in 2025, excluding Tom Ford, and this is the guidance that we shared in April of this year, which puts us ahead of what we had originally shared at our Capital Market Day in Oasi Zegna in May of 2022, when we had qualified our medium-term target as the horizon in or before 2026. So we are ahead of those targets, and this is a great positive step for us, given that the current market environment, and this is a solid proof of our execution and of the strengths of our brand. So let's enter now, opening the revenues growth by product, by channel, by geography.
As you can see, we expect the whole pie to grow and all its component to grow at a healthy pace. Zegna in 2022 was 62%. In the nine months, closed in September, was 59% because we incorporated also the inclusion of Tom Ford Fashion. And looking forward, Zegna is still the anchor, but the growth is expected at 360 degrees across the three brands: Zegna, Thom Browne, and Tom Ford. Moving to the incidence by channel. As you have heard by all the speakers, we are shifting more and more to take control of our last mile in terms of DTC growth. This is reflected into the evolution of our channel mix.
As for ZEGNA, we are well ahead of the curve because we are at 85% and 15%, as Edoardo was mentioning, adding towards a 90% of brand revenues in the medium term, driven by store openings, driven by store productivity, by the conversions of wholesale into concession, and from the buyback of the South Korea business that was declared to happen at the beginning of 2024. Within this context, we are moving the network of DTC stores of ZEGNA to around 300 stores in the next years. It is important to note that this evolution also reflects the fact that we are going to close outlets. This is consistent with the ZEGNA One Brand strategy and the elevation ongoing of the brand.
As for Thom Browne, as Rodrigo has shown, we expect to flip the current ratio, which is, 60/40, close to 60 wholesale, vice versa, to a 60/40 retail. This will happen as the brand streamlines its wholesale presence to focus on quality distribution, along with the fact that the store network, that will be 85 doors at the end of this year, will land over 100 directly operated stores in the medium term. As for Tom Ford Fashion, we are aiming at a 70/30 retail to wholesale mix, thanks to both the increase in store productivity that Lelio was mentioning before, a single digit, and the expansion of the DTC network from the current 50 to 90, 100 doors. Let's deep dive at this point into the DTC drivers of growth. One typical question is: Is it volume? Is it price?
Is it mix? So this page, which is filled with content, but I will try to make it simple, gives a snapshot of, by brand, whether we are expecting the DTC growth coming from volume, from price, or from mix. And the ingredients are different if we look backwards, vis-à-vis if we look forward. In the last years, we have seen the biggest driver of growth coming from the volume for Thom Browne, because of the expansion of the network and the big growth in e-commerce. And for Zegna, from the elevation of the brand, we had enjoyed growth from price increases and from mix elevation. If we move forward, at this point, we see a different mix ingredient. We are expecting volume to be the major driver for the three brands, because Zegna is taking over Korea. Zegna is opening 30 net, net 30 openings.
We are expecting, through a new, merchandise cadence and 360-degree styling approach, to increase UPT. This is one of our next area of focus, UPT, unit per transaction. We are roughly around two. We have possibility to lift it above the two unit per transaction, and this will be an expected driver of our growth. And of course, as, Edoardo was mentioning, our widening client base is bringing increasing volumes. For Thom Browne, definitely, the new store openings will be a driver, together with the market investment that is inviting new clients into the brand. For Tom Ford, definitely doubling the network from 50 to 90 or 90, 100, and the fact that we are putting lots of CapEx in, existing stores, are both drivers to increase the volumes.
Price and mix are expected to be drivers of growth to a more muted level compared to the last years. Prices are expected to increase at a level to absorb inflation effect. We still have some price increases on spring 2024 for Zegna, but then we expect, this is the assumption behind our numbers, to go into smaller touch-ups. And in terms of mix, this will be an important addition for Thom Browne and Tom Ford on women and leather. For Thom Browne, also Made to Measure, which is still an untapped opportunity. And for Zegna, I think that we have elevated the mix. We still have some opportunities in some categories to further elevate, for instance, the example of the Second Skin in leather accessories, one of those, to elevate further the price, the product quality, and therefore, the price.
This is the recap of the number that I mentioned. So we are today, slightly south of 384, 390 doors directly operated. Zegna is adding 50, partially from Korea, 15 doors, the rest being new openings. Thom Browne going north of 100, and Tom Ford almost doubling the network. Store productivity, I think this was already explained, but we reinforce the fact that we said we want to increase productivity by 50% in, from 2021 into the medium term last year, and that medium term already happened in 2023, so we are well ahead of the curve of our improvement of store productivity. And from now, now onwards, we want to continue increasing store productivity at double-digit per year. Moving to the breakdown by geography, we are moving to a more balanced landscape.
Europe is going to have to enjoy growth on the DTC side of the business, while we are expecting more moderate growth and increase on the part that is important for Europe of the B2B, for instance, textile or wholesale. So it's a mix that should slightly reduce the incidence of EMEA. North America, we are expecting further growth, not just for all the reasons that Nili was mentioning, but also for the addition of Tom Ford, which is over-indexed in U.S. On Asia, we are expecting a lower incidence, especially on GCR, because of the accelerated expansion in the other markets. And I remember that in terms of Zegna, the network of stores directly operated in GCR will be not expanded.
We are going to invest more in renewals and relocations rather than further increase of the number of stores. We believe we have a pretty good coverage. We need to reinforce the coverage with the right locations and the right refresh of the stores. Moving to the EBIT. First, we want to confirm that we are on track to meet the objectives stated earlier this year of at least 15% adjusted EBIT margin in 2025, excluding Tom Ford Fashion. Our new outlook, which takes, at this point into the equation also Tom Ford, is an adjusted EBIT growth of about 20%, compounded from 2023 to the medium term. As a reminder, 2023 profitability will be impacted by the addition of Tom Ford Fashion for 8 months.
As well, in those eight months, will be impacted by the so-called purchase price allocation, which is something that we already anticipated and now we quantify, will mean around EUR 15-16 million charge to the adjusted EBIT. It, it's not below adjusted EBIT, it impacts adjusted EBIT. This EUR 15-16 million one-off purchase price allocation charges are related almost entirely to the part of the price that is being allocated to inventory that we inherited at time of deal closing. This charge were already disclosed in our semi-annual financial figures, of course, on a pro rata basis, because it was just two months. Here, we see the building blocks of our... where we see our 20% per year coming from.
The pillars for our EBIT margin growth are linked to, first, a solid gross margin improvement, which will benefit from definitely a very favorable channel mix, thanks to the over-performance of DTC. They will benefit from price strength and price discipline, will benefit from a relevant part of the business coming from the so-called essentials or classic, are our iconic products that are carried over season over season, and they enjoy a lower burden of leftover accrual at the end of the season. And finally, the scale, being vertically integrated, all this journey of growth will define a positive cost leverage impact on the absorption of the fixed cost of our supply chain. The benefits from the gross margin growth and the productivity will be partially reinvested to sustain the long-term desirability, growth, and awareness of our brands.
So marketing incidents, which, as we anticipated, stepped up between 2021 and 2023, and at this point, the level of incidence of 2023 becomes our new normal. We are not reducing the level. We are expecting to maintain this higher percentage of revenues going forward. On the SG&A side, increased CapEx, which I will talk in a moment. Increased CapEx-driven depreciation will be more than compensated by positive cost leverage due to scale of central cost and store productivity on which generate positive cost leverage into the store costs. Of course, then we need to remind, to take into the equation, that our EBIT margin will then be affected by royalties and the amortization of the license agreement related to the Tom Ford Fashion. And here we give a sense of that, of the order of magnitude. I think we never gave this indication.
The royalties are expected to impact one percentage point on the group's adjusted EBIT margin, and then we have a EUR 3 million amortization of the license agreement, which is an intangible asset of EUR 90 million to be amortized over the 30 years of the contract horizon. So one could say, "Why did you purchase Tom Ford if it's bringing the margin down?" So in order to make it, because someone, we get this question. So because it's financially accretive. Apart from all the strategic arguments of having Tom Ford into our Tom Ford fashion into the picture, which helps, in terms of commercial synergies, in terms of industrial synergies. But from a pure financial standpoint, it's, it is financial accretive because, of course, of course, we have a lower EBIT and lower EBIT margin.
But if you go into a typical M&A transaction, you have a bigger cash out upfront, and then you enjoy an EBIT that is not impacted by royalties. Of course, we have an EBIT impacted by royalties, but we did pay a more muted amount of money at time of the closing. If we look holistically, our business plan over the horizon of, of the, of the contract gives us a return int- IRR net of taxes higher than 20%, which gives us a comfort on, in terms of, of the soundness of this, investment. Finally, moving to CapEx. Of course, all this growth comes with some price and some ta- price tag attached. We are expecting two years above the normal rate.
Normal rate for us is roughly around 5% CapEx over revenues, so we are expecting to be south of 10, but north of 5 for a couple of years because we have to invest in the distribution. We are going, and I think it's important also to remind, our vertical integration means also investing in the supply chain. We are going to reinforce more and more the Made in Italy platform by investing in outerwear, shoes, sleeve units, cutting facilities in Made in Italy, and this will determine a further advantage for our product differentiation. So this is the reason why we are seeing ahead of us a couple of years of investment, investment in CapEx, as I said before, investment in marketing. But at the end of the day, if the question is, do you think this will absorb cash?
At the end of the day, our outlook is to finish with a solid cash surplus generation in the midterm, so we will pay ourselves, finishing with cash positive compared to the end of this year. Thank you, all, and I look forward to receiving your question, and then hand it over to Gildo for remarks.
Okay, I think that it has been an exciting presentation. Maybe a little bit too long, but we were more or less to stay in the time allocated. I think we heard from our management team about the strategy, about our ambitions for each of the brand to execute this excellent and exciting journey off the road to tomorrow. I think that we have focused well enough on what makes us unique and what makes this moment very, very important for our group in terms of timing, in terms where we are and what we can achieve. I think we are a luxury leader with over a century of authentic Italian heritage, focused on the Italian industrial tradition, which I think that is a very, very important sound point.
We are moving beyond just being the undisputed number one player in luxury garments to tap into new opportunities in other soft luxury category. We believe our total addressable market, as we said, is now roughly three times of what it used to be when we were a mono-brand group. Our brand complement each other well, fostering a harmonious blend across geographies, categories, and gender. And as successful as they are, our brands also have untapped potential, offering several opportunities for in various market, according to the times and according to customer segment, according to flow of customer. I mean, we have seen an incredible migration of people moving from one city to another, of people moving from one territory to another.
So I think that the opportunity we'd have by applying our CRM, our clientele sophisticated system to all three brands is immense, and we can take advantage of all that. So I'm proud of how we have executed our plan so far. Thanks to our strong management team, I think we're ahead of the objectives we have outlined since our IPO Capital Markets Day, and we have delivered, in the end, well beyond our promises. And this is our culture mindset, to raise the bar... and not to overpromise and to accomplish what we promise. As a result, we have set forth an updated financial outlook, which now includes Tom Ford Fashion, and we share the details with you throughout the morning. But in summary, again, I want to repeat it one more time.
Our goal is to achieve, number one, over 10% revenue compounded average growth rate, 2023 to medium term. Number two, adjusted EBIT over 20% compounded average growth rate to medium term, and end up with a strong cash surplus. The final thoughts on 2024, I'm sure that you have, we have some questions in the minutes to come on the Q&A session. We are finishing the year on a good note, I must say, and we enter the 2024 at least with the same mindset, and I say this with a smile, beside the geopolitical circumstances which we have to face. I think we have spent two hours telling you what we are doing, and we keep a positive mind since regardless of what 2024 will bring us, we, we continue to execute on our road, believing in what we're doing.
Thank you very much, and now we open up for question and answer. What we have, about an hour? Thank you.
We now open the session for Q&A. We will have, I think, approximately 30 minutes, 40 minutes, depending on how many questions we will have.
Thank you very much for your presentation. Luca Solca from Bernstein. I have three questions, if I may. The first one relates to how you reconcile the brand elevation efforts that you have provided and the very important success that they have produced with the need to maintain presence in the enterprise section of the business, both in your core categories and in other product categories. That could include, for example, eyewear, the situation of your license and so on. You were pointing to licenses potentially providing more, and I wonder how you see the enterprise position of the group. That is, products that cost less than $1,000, let's say.
Then I was wondering, from a financial viewpoint, you have very diverse businesses because you have businesses that you have developed organically, like, the Zegna brand. You have businesses that you have acquired. You have, as, Gianluca was showing, businesses that you have now acquired but without significant cash outflow. And then you have all of the industrial business. So I wonder if you have a return on invested capital number for these four divisions that you continue to track, and where you expect that the most important improvement in return on invested capital could come from.
And then maybe thirdly, just to confirm the health of the development, which I'm sure is great, but if you could give us more detail on the off-price businesses and how factory outlet activity is going to be reduced, that could also help. Thank you very much indeed.
So, I think that, take the first two, and then I'll let, Gianluca the second two... Shall we stand? Shall we sit?
Oh, you can, you can sit and—
Uh-
You can sit and push the microphone.
To stand, at least. I move around. We've been sitting two hours. Now, just to get it right, the first one is.
Speak on the microphone.
Oh, there is no microphone. But well, I cannot go around with this.
There.
The podium.
Ah, oui. No, I wanted to walk around, not to be at the podium. Now, the first question is about product innovation and how we keep up with that, if I understand correctly, and the repercussion on the pricing of that. Is that, is that the question?
Yeah, and especially in the entry price segment.
Listen, it's a nice problem to have. For the time being, we are not having that issue. As we expand our customer base, we have to think of product below $1,000, €1,000, which I think that the textile accessories are a good opportunity and not only for us, but for everybody, because I think that we are not very strong in any brand of that. I think the licensing business will help. You know, Zegna is very small on that. Tom Ford is better, and Thom Browne... Tom Ford is very strong, and Thom Browne can improve.
So I think that part in particular with eyewear and also with the launch of a new fragrance will probably happen in a couple of years will help. And then also in the leather accessories, I think in the leather accessory, we have a word that can surely be developed better. So to cut a long story short, we are studying the way to provide the new customer with a more accessible project and product without going away from this luxury pyramid that we have in mind. The second question is on?
The return on capital employed, how-
No, no, no, no, no.
Yeah.
There was a second question before the capital employed.
No.
You asked four questions. No? Oh, that's it.
Yeah.
That's it, so I'll give it to him.
We'll let Gianluca.
But if you want, you can answer the question on outlets and how you-
I know, sorry, outlet. That's it.
Outlet
...outlet. No, the question of outlet is that we need less outlet than we used to use. Surely for Zegna, and I don't think that Tom Ford, Thom Browne have too many outlets. I think that what they have is enough, and we have a plan to reduce outlet. As a matter of fact-
Mm
... this year, we will reduce a few, next year, more to come. But the interesting things on the outlet is that we are selling better merchandise, because we are seeing that there is a customer that visit the outlet and visit the normal store, and so we want to offer better merchandise. And surely, our policy is not to make for outlet. That's very important. But to sell the leftover of regular-priced merchandise sold in store, because don't forget that since 2022, Zegna does not put on sale anything any longer. And the goal is to apply the similar route also to the other two brands. So overall, regular price point, less outlet, and be in the outlet where the quality of the merchandise and on the service goes up.
As a matter of fact, we are testing, because this is public information, some outlet to sell regular price merchandise, with good results, starting from the quality of prestige. Because the customer is, in many instances, similar to the customer that shops in Bond Street, that shops in 57, and shops in Montenapoleone. So we are experimenting a couple of stores-
Mm
... in order, and then to increase the productivity, also the outlet, that is lower than the regular stores, and to be offering, you know, the leftover of one year before of the regular.
Mm.
So overall, I think it's a sound policy.
If I may add on this, if you remember, we had the three collection, many more SKUs, stores that were on average bigger. So now, at the end of the season, also thanks to the essentials that take a big portion of space, inventory, and sales, at the end of the season, we have a lower amount to be cleared. So this gives us the opportunity in the next few years to reduce sensibly the number of outlets. And as Gildo was mentioning also, we are seeing also a reduction of the discount percentage in those outlets. Going to the return on capital employed, I give you a qualitative answer, because we are not reporting specific numbers, but I give you the quality, the direction.
Of course, there are a couple of businesses like, textile or third-party brands, which are, let's call it, typical cash cow businesses. You don't inject a lot. You enjoy a fixed structure that is already there. So those businesses, we see them with a moderate growth. That is not where we are. Those are solid, low single-digit cash cow businesses. Of course, we have the two Toms, especially Tom Ford, which will be one area of big investments in the next couple of years. And that's why, Leo was saying, for a couple of years, for one year, especially next year, will be a transition. So if we measure the return on investment into the short term for those business, will. That business especially, will be a business that will absorb a lot of cash.
And that's why we are looking at, at the venture of Tom Ford Fashion over the 30 years. We want to invest in marketing, in people, in stores, and so, it will be one area of, cash absorption for the years to come. And same, for different reasons, for Thom Browne. Thom Browne has gone through a journey of growth that has been more, into, its niche, if you wish, and now it's becoming bigger and broader, moving from word-of-mouth marketing to more louder marketing, from stores that, at this point, become a network that is tangible over the 100 stores. So it, it's also an area where we want to invest. Zegna, it's a new phase.
I think that we are enjoying cash results, EBIT results, that we have never seen for Zegna, and that's the reason why we are, at this point, confident that it's time to inject some money. First, to take over Korea, which is business important, and from-
... the amplification of the brand in Asia, very important. And we are injecting also to take presence in locations that before Zegna it didn't belong. So Santa Barbara, we never thought about opening a store in Santa Barbara a few years ago. Now, it's a place where we are perfectly citizen, where our clients are, and where we follow them. And the same will happen in Monte Carlo in the next first half of the year, and so on and so forth. So it's a phase where we are seeing tailwind on the brands, and that's why we are, as I presented at the end of the presentation, we are. It's a phase where we are going to invest CapEx and marketing in the three brands.
First, yeah, Chris, or the gentleman there.
Sorry.
Hi, thank you very much. Oliver Chen, TD Cowen. Been a big fan of Thom Browne for a decade. As you think about Triple Stitch and recruiter product, what do you think will be recruiter products potentially at Thom Browne and your other brands? Also, with women's and handbags, what, what are your thoughts in terms of accelerating credibility there? Second question is about loyalty and personalization. What will be your core competencies, whether that be data or specifics around that at the group level? And third and final question is about magic and logic. Logic being, artificial intelligence, as well as e-commerce and digital. Just some thoughts on key priorities, opportunities, especially as your customers are getting younger. Thank you.
All Thom Browne, correct? All Thom Browne.
Tom Brown.
Yeah. Yeah, perfect. So to the first question, I think it's a very intelligent question. Shirting, knitwear, elevated jersey are typically, and tailoring, are the typical entry. If you talk to a new client, they've always been touched the brand because of that. Moving to your second question, those are, those are timeless product, the seasonless product, that we're very proud that we have. Moving to your second question, which is accessories and footwear. If you take a look at what Tom has defined, there's, there's a pebble grain signature in multicolor right now. There's a use of a gros grain, which is a fantastic trademark use and recognition. There's a type of zip and details to it. So there is no question marks that our footwear and accessories can be recognizable, number one, can have a cohesive expression of Thom Browne.
To be totally fair, the client that wears clothing in a significant way, most likely wears Hermès accessories, female, in this case, and footwear as well. So it's, it's quite a champ for the client. They do wear it, and, we are, we're very clear on the families of product. Today, we are sitting on five years of developing different families of accessories and footwear. We're very clear where we can get mileage, where we are unique, and where we continue to, to grow. Most likely, the growth will come from our current client. So I think your question is very intelligent, is anchored on that, is how to convert the client into those product categories. The third part of the question is, related to AI?
Digital. I think for the group at large-
Yeah, yeah
... uh.
I can start answering that. We've been working with data scientists for the last 5 years. We enjoy working with data because it's not, I think you think, it's the client can tell us, and we can read through the data. So client value management is largely work on... It's been 4, 5 years of creating data sets, data warehouses, working through COVID, even my own curiosity. We can analyze classics through data and curate classics. Class- what is a classic product? It's anything being sold... This is a data scientist point of view. It's something being sold daily, weekly, for more than 52 weeks, regardless if it's blue, white, gray, different shades of gray. So we really sit on that and analyze, and we have whole teams that are working on product to evaluate that to hopefully match supply chain to that.
So we sit in the right amount of product, and we have the right product in the right place, which is always a challenge when you become a retailer, to be totally frank. When you look into clienteling, it's fascinating with analyzing the client behavior data, but it's not only the data. We have a whole team then that engages and create the qualitative aspect of clienteling. We have a very committed, very active client that we have to really appreciate having.
Maybe Edoardo, if you want to.
Hi, nice to meet you. So we talked about CRM and the tool that we're now giving to all of our sales associate as a whole. Clearly, there is a operational side of it, so stock availability and so forth, but clearly, there is also an AI component out of all of this. We have launched Zegna X, that is, for us, is the digital ecosystem on a bespoke servicing standpoint, partnered with Microsoft and OpenAI in figuring out a way of serving and helping our sales associate with the best information that we can provide. And so, and so yeah, I think it's not a question of whether we're going to use AI, it's how and how much.
Our position as a group is clearly that AI will never replace a human touch, a human quality. AI is here to, you know, exponentially improve the way that they can personalize and cater the information as a whole. And this is on a customer standpoint. But clearly, AI will also be instrumental potentially on product, on predicting sizes, weather, colors, and so forth, across the board. So yes, it's part of our journey.
Please.
And to close-
Oh, sorry.
To close with Tom Ford, of course, when we talk about entry product price, we described in the presentation that our business is 70% men, 30% women. Clearly, in the woman, there is a bunch of product that we need category that we need to develop. Accessory is only 10, between 10% and 50%, so this part of accessory will cover the entry price product in the woman mainly, but as well in the men business. We have to develop much more in this product category to boost the business. In terms of loyalty, personalization, my experience in the last couple of months is that I never see such a loyal client like the one of Tom Ford.
I met, in particular, after the fashion show, clients that have over 1,000 suits of Tom Ford, and they collect it like, like a piece of art because they believe this is something that they need to have it in their wardrobe. And I, I met men that will buy product, female product, just to put on a frame in their offices as well, because, again, it's part of art. And this is, I think, is a strong base where to start in terms of loyalty, loyalty for our clients. We just need to exploit this number of clients and make sure that the ones that we already have, they are more and more keen to be with us.
Personalization, of course, I think is the next step because this client, they need to have a kind of personalization. We're really thinking to launch a Tom House club, where we can put together all these top client and give them possibility to make personalization, customization, not only made to order, made to measure. And of course, then we use all the tools that the group will exploit to make the necessary need of intelligence, active intelligence, artificial intelligence and other platform that will allow us to make it happen.
Um-
On personalization, let me just add something for Zegna, because it's interesting. I think we really have traveled the world in the past three months, in particular, with Aurelio to get to better understand the Tom Ford world and how to gain inroads in the luxury field. One of the things we have realized is the importance of creating separate environment for personalization and for exclusive product. And so, one of the thoughts we have is to create kind of lounges on top of the store, on the side of the store, to be able to reach our top customer, with men and women, by appointment. And I think this is something that people of a certain stature were going to enjoy more and more around the world.
We are on the process of that. The other trend we see happening is, you know, the cafe and restaurant type of the lighting, which I can say probably, you know, at least we are studying the matter, but we see it's happening. So I think the whole lifestyle world around the luxury client, I mean, is getting more articulated and having three brands that we can actually experience it, again, will be very helpful to decide what to do, where to do it, and how to do it. But surely, it's part of the exclusivity and personalized world of the high-net-worth individual that require special attention on that.
Next question.
Yes, thank you. Thank you for the insightful presentation, and congratulations on the start of the new chapter of the company. Chris Huang from UBS, and I have four questions for the group and for each of the three brands. So firstly, starting on the overall group portfolio, it seems to me that the group portfolio is now quite comprehensive with Tom Ford joining the company. So can you provide some color on the consumer profile you see for the three brands, maybe on metrics such as age, gender, and spending power, just to understand the key audience for the three? The second question is on Tom Ford, the growth drivers you provided for the 10% top-line CAGR going forward.
I think if we look at the space growth by DOS count, we can imply roughly low teens space growth on an annual basis. So if we compare these two numbers, it will be very helpful to understand what kind of assumptions you're baking in for like for like and wholesale. That's my second question. Thirdly, on Thom Browne, so we understand that volumes will be, you know, the key drivers going forward. Do you plan to achieve this through mostly existing consumers buying more or recruiting new consumers, and what is the strategy around that? Lastly, on Zegna, maybe a more high-level question on the trends you have seen so far this year. We see a very, I would say, rather diverging trends for the brand and versus the peers in the sector.
On the one hand, you have American and European consumers who have been doing, you know, very, very well for the brand, but at the same time, the Chinese consumers seems to be, you know, flattish on a two-year stack, mainly due to the more gradual roll out of their rebranding progress. So-
...What do you think is the driver behind this, and especially the relative strength of the Western consumers for the brand, and how should we think about it going forward into 2024 as we enter a more, normalized sector environment? Thank you very much.
So maybe you should take the question about the portfolio of brands, and each will describe—I mean, maybe I can introduce the portfolio brands as you have had the opportunity to see is very complementary, and I will give the word to each to describe quickly what the type of customer is. And we can start from here. Maybe, Rodrigo, you want to take this first?
Profiles. In terms of client profile for Thom Browne, you're looking at two. One, we say, highly committed. We call them VACs, on the route to VICs, which are in the EUR 50,000+ a year, easily. He or she buys clothing in a very committed way. He or she buys bags and shoes from those top three brands on the planet. It's a highly consistent, it's a highly global, not only in the East, where we have bigger amount of stores today, but also in the West. And this is a fantastic path in the last couple of years. On the other side, you have potentially these so-called younger, but not, doesn't have to be. We never go by age. We love clients of all ages, of all parts of the planet.
This is a potentially younger, it's a fashion influencer or more a fashionista. He or she selects the key items of the brands, and that person can go through more, tougher periods of consumer confidence like we have seen in recent times, and it, it's part of life. But you will see he or she with sporting Thom Browne and that famous brand, French, wearing the sneakers and the other one with a small bag. So that's the type of mixing and matching. We like them both. And the path of growth, we obviously want to enlarge the community of people that many of you like, know Thom Browne, want to wear Thom Browne, and, but we want to engage even more with the current client. I give you three simple statistics.
If we capture 95% of the data of the client, that doesn't mean squeezing you of data, just acknowledging you, understanding you. If we convert to closer to 40% the repeat rate, because it's new client, that has to be a client for life with us. If you target that, the EUR 10,000 plus, EUR 10,000 plus means two transactions with us. That means if you came and bought EUR 5,000, and the second time, we don't even acknowledge you, shame on us, we did something wrong. The EUR 10,000 can easily be a percentage point of the overall population. That on its own doubles the business. On top of that, you're gaining new clients, and that's where our passion is, on both ends.
Thank you. I'll move to Edoardo.
So let me start with the concept that in our mind, age is a state of mind, in the sense that we see 20 years old wanting to dress like 60 years old, and you see 60 years old wearing like, like 20 years old. So we are very focused in creating iconic products that distill the essence of who we are. You saw from the data we shared, we cannot share more data than that. We are seven years younger than our new customer is seven years younger than 2019. We are very happy with that. We're enjoying that customer that is on top of the funnel and is new and likes our new range of products. So please.
Yeah, first of all, as I mentioned, the presentation is difficult for Tom Ford to define the profile of our client because we don't have yet a CRM system to collect all the information. Of course, it's on the pipeline and going to implement very soon to get more data and to push ourselves. But if I can define the profile of our consumer, of course, we are talking about in term of woman, we're talking of woman that are in the range to basically 30 to 45, 50 years old. And in term of men, we're talking about 35 to 55. Both of them are very strong character. They are bold, they prefer craftsmanship, and they are just prioritizing quality in the way they are dressing up.
Both of them, they are frequent travel, and they like to enjoy the luxurious element of our, of our product. This is basically what we have now. Of course, expanding the new category, we're gonna have the objective to go down a little bit with the age because we have accessory that can tackle much more the younger consumer. That is top, top important for Tom Ford, but again, is an uplifting to what we have now or we define now because it's a completely new consumer that we're gonna tackle.
I will let Gianluca answer the more finance-related question on Tom Ford growth drivers in China.
Triangulating number, the answer is easy. If you have a higher than 10% growth of Tom Ford compared to 2023, and on that number, we have prorated on a 12-month base. We grow the DTC stores, we grow the productivity. The last piece of the equation is that, wholesale is expected to be low single-digit. That is, that is the equation, that is the assumption that is behind the numbers. We are not, into our numbers, projecting growth of Tom Ford on the wholesale business... or very limited, very limited growth.
Do you want to take the question on China, too, Gianluca?
Well, I think we have always disclosed the fact, as you were saying, that we were going at different speed on the Western world, as we have disclosed. Compared to a few years ago, we have doubled the business with U.S. consumers on Zegna, with Middle Easterns, with South Americans. We have grown substantially with Europeans, and we have always disclosed up to September that on a two-year stack, we were flattish. Let's remind that we have removed a business that was Z Zegna in China, was quite important, was mid-teens in terms of size. So flattish is an optical illusion because we have given back part of the business, the famous entry price. We decided to. So we stayed flattish by carving out a big part of that business.
The fact that Edoardo was mentioning that there is traction on the upper luxury, there is traction on Triple Stitch, it gives us comfort that there is legitimacy of the new journey of the brand also in China. Giving you some flavor of current trading, we have enjoyed a fantastic November, also in China. We are very confident that there is no limit to the success of the brand also in China. Of course, as we have said, we are putting the money now. We have done events now, and we are putting more and more money in China, not expanding the network, as I said, but keeping the brand high as it is, through renewals, relocation, and so on and so forth. But we are confident that all the ingredients of our executions are and will work in China as well.
Thank you. Is there... Are there any more questions? Just maybe a final one, otherwise, we will call it a day.
Hi, Zach from Invesco. It's a—I mean, obviously it's a lovely story. We're supporters. What are the thoughts on liquidity in the shares?
What are the thoughts on liquidity? Of liquidity...
Listen, the family stays with the shares. I mean, doesn't want to sell any more shares. So I think there is certain liquidity in the market, and, you know, there is there to be used. But, if the question is if the family wants to dilute the shares, the answer is no. The family is very united, is very pleased on the road to tomorrow and, you know, expects to create value on a good story that the management execution is bringing about. So that's where we are. Is that the answer of your question?
Quick question for Lelio. This is Pilar Rocafort from UBS. You moved from LVMH to Zegna. Which were your main reasons to moving to Zegna?
Well, I think it's a good question, this one. First of all, look at this room and this table. I mean, I think in the last couple of hour, we've been able to show not only a very comprehensive plan to develop each brand of the group, but as well, I believe we show a united team that enjoying doing with passion what we want to do. And we have in front of us a wise entrepreneurs and CEO of the group that give delegation and empower the manage to make it, to make it happen. So this is the best of the best that a manager of our age would like to do.
I think, going back in Zegna Group after 14 years, it was just recalling what I used to do with Gildo long time ago and what I'm sure I can do in the next year to make this brand growing, flying, and to make this group even more stronger with all the knowledge and competence that I develop in the last 20 years in my experience in luxury. I don't know if that's answer your question. Thank you.
I think there's one more from Oliver.
Oliver Chen, TD Cowen. I had a question about supply chain and speed. Like, what are some initiatives or thoughts you have in the opportunity for speed, as that can always help match supply and demand and reduce overages as well? And also, with markdowns now or a product that doesn't sell, what happens to it?
Gianluca. Or, yeah.
Having an integrated supply chain, we can use speed as a factor of commercial differentiation. We do it in two ways: one, that is visible to the consumer, and the second is less visible to the consumer. When it's visible to the consumer is Make to Measure and ultra-fast Make to Measure in selected stores, we deliver in two or three weeks any single category. I come back to your question about personalization. Now, our range of personalized product is not just tailoring, but all the luxury leisurewear collection. We deliver normally in three to four weeks. In ultrafast service, we deliver in two weeks in Europe, two weeks in New York, any single product, with the exception of outerwear, which requires a longer timeframe for building.
So we use our back of the house to be quick, to meet the consumer demand. Same thing, visible to the consumer, the essential program or classic program for Thom Browne, having the back, in the back, the supply chain allows us to do quickly in-season replenishment. This is one factor in the ready-to-wear, where you easily lose sales in the middle of the season if you break sizes. So having internal supply chain allows us to be quick when we see some sizes that are broken, to replenish quickly and not lose sales in the second part of the season. That is typically one missed opportunity for ready-to-wear players.
Internally, one area that we are putting more and more effort is to be quick in the prototyping phase, which allows us, our designers, to have quick response, quicker response, when they are building the collection. These are, I think, the areas where we are putting effort in terms of being speed, being quick.
I would add another important factor, that we are decided to create a shoe factory, very forward in terms of culture. A factory that communicates and that can be visited by our customer. We want to transfer our know-how, not only in textile, not only in knitwear, not only in clothing, but also in the leather field. And so it's a big investment we're going to face. The factory will be ready in a couple of years. We're going to employ a few hundreds of skilled Italians. We're going to host a Zegna Academy as part of the leather process. We are going to have our archives in the leather history.
And so I think it's going to be a game changer to establish Zegna as an integrated supply chain, not only in the textile or in the ready-to-wear, also in leather. And to be honest with you, it can help the purposes also of Thom Browne and Tom Ford. So, another further consolidation in integrating verticalized supply chain made in Italy. Very strong statement, that one. Because the business is there, and I think that most of the shoes are produced not in our factories. We want to produce more shoes, and providing what Gianluca would say is service. Also, a made-to-order shoe service, a quicker replenishment service, and probably in the shoes, in themselves, is even more important than in the ready-to-wear.
So I think it's going to be a common effort, at least for the men's shoe. You know, I'm talking about men's shoe. Women's shoe, it's a different chapter altogether.
But then the question on unsold products, I think, you know, it goes through outlets, as we said during the presentation.
But, you know, the challenge there is to reduce unsold product. I cannot give you info on that because it's not. It's private information, but I can tell you we're working hard. In order to get the productivity as high as we got, it means our sell-through at regular price point in the store is better. And so I think it's all this very complicated mechanism of supply chain, of merchandising, of drops, of reassortment, that if you are able to run it properly, you can increase the sell-through, and you can diminish the number of goods sold to the outlet, and so you can cut the number of outlets.
So it's like a spiral, and so we are testing the program and the project at ZEGNA, and we are ready to share this information with the Ford and, and the Browne also. So when we talk about share, services, I would talk more about shared experiences. I remember when we introduced the, the Essential that Gianluca was talking about, we learned it from, Thom Browne, learned from the classic. That's very important, but Thom Browne learned from us in terms of made to measure. What about Icon? I think that we can learn in terms of Icon by Tom Ford. Tom Ford is the icon of leather outerwear, is the icon of anywhere, anywhere.
You know, I think it's fun to work together around the same table, exchanging experiences, and I think this is much easier if you do, being an aggregate group, not being conglomerate. Conglomerate, with due respect, they work in silos. I don't think they have the integration as we have, and so I think that we are really representing an interesting new model, also in our own way. And I think it's fun. Cross-fertilization factor across culture, this I think it's the new model of aggregation in luxury, bearing the strength of the supply chain.
Because if you have an industry... If you don't have an industry, as my friend Patrizio Bertelli says, you don't go very far. Fashion is about having control of an industry, relying on your own forces, create the R&D. If I talk to you about R&D, it's big part of our time and investment in R&D. But you can invest in R&D if you have a supply chain, if you have an industry. Otherwise, what are R&D? Okay, you can invest, you know, R&D on the retail side, on the digital side, but that's not good enough. So it's...
These are the fun part of our business, each one bringing his own part and working together for the common goal, increasing the value, increasing the customer satisfaction at every bit of each brand. That's-
Any more question? No. I think we can wrap it up here. There are refreshments in the room next door, and thank you very much, everyone, for attending, and also to the viewers of our live webcast online, and see you to the next one.