Editor’s Note
Despite a two-year slowdown in M&A activity, the fashion and luxury sector remains a top draw for investors, with 90% expressing interest for 2025. This insight comes from Deloitte’s latest survey, which highlights investor confidence amid ongoing economic headwinds.
Following the post-Covid recovery, mergers and acquisitions have slowed over the past two years in the fashion and luxury sectors. However, despite the economic climate, the sector continues to attract nine out of ten investors in 2025, even though tariffs are a concern for the majority of them. This is the finding of the consulting firm Deloitte in its latest report “Fashion & Luxury Private Equity and Investors Survey 2025,” which anticipates key trends ahead of its publication on September 25.
The survey was conducted globally with a panel of 60 private equity investors and over 114 companies active in the fields of Apparel & Accessories, Watches & Jewelry, Cosmetics & Fragrances, luxury automobiles, luxury hotels, private jets, cruises, furniture, yachts, and luxury restaurants.
In 2024, the luxury universe recorded 333 deals compared to 308 in 2023, a decrease of twenty-five in one year. Notable deals last year included the acquisition of the luxury platform YNAP by German e-commerce company Mytheresa from the Swiss luxury group Richemont, while the merger between the two American giants Capri (Michael Kors) and Tapestry (Coach) fell through. The first half of 2025, marked by the acquisition of Versace by the Prada Group for 1.25 billion euros, confirms the widespread slowdown with only 162 transactions compared to 188 a year earlier, a decrease of 14%.
In the luxury goods segment alone, which represents 40.2% of total transactions, the number of deals concluded last year decreased by 6.3%. In detail, Apparel & Accessories, which remains the most attractive sector for M&A with a total of 85 transactions in 2024, saw 20 fewer deals compared to the previous year. Similarly, transactions for Watches & Jewelry amounted to 15 in 2024 versus 17 a year earlier. Only Cosmetics & Fragrances performed well, jumping from 21 to 34 deals in one year (+13).
Topping the overall ranking for 2024, as always, was luxury hospitality with 145 transactions (+1), followed by Apparel & Accessories—an industry that remains attractive nonetheless—then by transactions in furniture with 23 deals (+10), and by yachts and automobiles with 11 deals each (-5 for the former and -13 for the latter between 2023 and 2024).
In terms of size, the average value of mergers and acquisitions completed in 2024 was around 260 million euros, slightly down compared to 2023 (-4%), with an increasing focus on medium-sized targets, confirming the growing interest in mid-market transactions.
Another trend identified by the consulting firm is the concern generated by tariffs. Eight out of ten investors surveyed believe this issue will have a negative impact on the market, with the regions most at risk from increasing trade barriers being North America (35%), Europe (33%), and Asia (29%).
From a geographical perspective, for investors, Europe (75%) remains the region with the highest potential for luxury transactions. It is followed by North America (23%). In 2024, the Old Continent concentrated the highest number of deals (210), 14 more than in 2023, while North America recorded only 54 (-23) and Asia-Pacific only 33 (-29).