A summer filled with large operations for French luxury giant Chanel. The brand, according to lesechos.com, has completed its acquisition of Tanneries Haas (which began in 2012). Eichoffen-based Haas specializes (with another handful of transalpine tanneries), in veal leather and employees 115 people and has 41 million euro of revenue”. In 2017, Haas reached production levels of “408,000 square meters of leather, 1.5 times more than in 2007 – explained Jean-Chrisophe Muller (who is also vice-president of Cotance, (European Confederation of the Leather Industry) to the French newspaper cited earlier -. Haas has been at its maximum production capacity levels for the past 2/3 years”. And so, keeping in mind that “Chanel is a long-time client of Haas, and has progressively entered the tannery with its own capital because it was a necessity to start relying on a solid group, with whom we share a vision”. Muller announced that Haas will invest “10 million euro to enlarge the site and increase its productive capacity by 50% in the next 4/6 years”. The plan includes a substantial technological upgrade for the various systems, and will finance 30 new hires. But Chanel didn’t limit its operations to France, where in the past it had acquired Bodin Joyeux and Mégisserie Richard. The brand also shopped in Spain, annexing 100% of ownership of another one of his historic suppliers (ovine leather, in this case): Colomer Leather Group, tannery based in Vic (Barcelona), a tannery that has just celebrated its 200 years of activity. According to what was reported by sociedades.info (and published also by economic-focused portal Expansion), starting from the middle of August, the president of the accessories and fashion for Chanel, Bruno Pavlovsky, is also the president of Colomer, while Jean-Chrisophe Muller (Haas’ ceo), has taken a seat in the tannery’s board of directors. The amount of the operation is top secret, but it is known that Colomer (group made of one tannery, 5 commercial sites in Spain and 1 in Japan), closed 2017 with 38.5 million euro in revenue, which was 5% lower than the year 2016. According to different news-sources, Chanel stated the following regarding the operation: “An opportunity to strengthen its excellence in the leather segment”. The fact is, this is just another piece of the puzzle to take full control of the supply chain and ensure the best raw material.
Tannery: Chanel acquires Colomer (Spain) and concludes its acquisition of Haas (France), that invests 10 million
