Max Mara nearly doubles UK profit as ‘extraordinary’ market challenges ease

The UK arm of luxury womenswear brand Max Mara has almost doubled its pre-tax profit despite what it described as a “highly uncertain” economic backdrop, newly-filed documents have revealed.

The company, which is headquartered in London, saw its pre-tax profit grow from £1.4m in 2022 to £2.6m last year.

The brand’s UK turnover ticked up to £71.3m in 2023 from £62.8m in the year before.

Max Mara said that the “challenging” environment seen in 2022 improved slightly last year and that “increased market demand” helping to offset ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty.

During the year the company increased its average monthly staff headcount from 109 in 2022 to 156.

Max Mara said that although staffing and property costs were its “most significant expenditure” these were “semi-fixed in nature”, adding that management would continue to review and control these costs “where possible”.

Max Mara: ‘Extraordinary’ challenges at play

In a statement published to Companies House, Max Mara said: “After a challenging 2022 characterised by geopolitical tensions, unprecedented inflation rates and the tightening of the global monetary policies, the macroeconomic outlook in 2023 remained highly uncertain.

“[This was] due to the ongoing conflict resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the maintenance of tensions in US-China relations regarding Taiwan and the reawakening of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict following the events of October 7, 2023.

“Such circumstances of extraordinary nature and magnitude have had direct and indirect consequences on economic activity and contributed to create a general environment of uncertainty, whose effects have particularly impacted distribution channels, the development of demand in international markets, the supply of goods and raw materials, as well as the trend of inflation and interest rates.

“Despite this geopolitical scenario, thanks to the greater resilience in the first part of the year, the global economy continued to grow.

“The company operates in primary markets on a global scale, exposing it to risks of social, economic and political instability in specific geographical areas.

“The market in which the company operates is influenced by these general trends and the evolution of the geopolitical situation has impacted the company, albeit to a non-significant extent, primarily in terms of contraction of business volume in specific markets, as well as indirect effects concerning the prices of certain specific production factors, still influenced by inflationary pressures.”