MILAN — Personal luxury goods are driving growth and profitability for the posh sector but in 2022 other luxury categories, which include furniture, automotive, yachting, cruises and hospitality, fueled mergers and acquisitions.

In keeping with the eighth installment of the Global Fashion and Luxury Private Equity and Investors Survey 2023 issued by Deloitte and presented Wednesday here, although rising inflation, geopolitical instability, fear of recession in China and provide chain troubles are pressuring the posh sector, the market was healthy enough to be a powerful M&A goal in 2022, especially in light of its high profitability.

Assessing about 300 firms globally, the survey highlights how 2021 margins for private luxury goods firms doubled those of other luxury sectors, with apparel and accessories’ average margins standing at 36 percent, followed by cosmetics and fragrances at 20.9 percent.

By comparison, the best-performing category in the opposite luxury sectors segment was furniture, posting average earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization of 23.6 percent.

Overall, the survey assessed 292 deals in 2022 — a 2.7 percent increase in comparison with the previous 12 months — finding that 43.2 percent of them targeted personal luxury goods firms.

The very best-performing category in 2022 was hospitality, with 16 more deals last 12 months in comparison with the one prior, followed by apparel and accessories and cosmetics and fragrances.

Tommaso Nastasi, partner Value Creation Service Leader at Deloitte, said the vast majority of deals happened in Europe. Each North America and the Asia Pacific regions experienced a slowdown in the style and luxury M&A in comparison with 2021.

“The foremost value for M&A is synergy, either with a financial partner that has other adjoining investments or industrial investors who can leverage their scale to grow business for the acquired entity,” Nastasi said adding that this reflects what’s already happening available in the market, as strategic and financial investors were evenly split across the 292 assessed deals.

His remarks opened as much as discussions on how Italian firms, oftentimes small and medium-sized, can sustain with competition and be attractive to investors.

“Our firms are big by way of brand value, awareness and ultimately brand equity, but very small by way of scale,” said Stefania Lazzaroni, general director of luxury industry association Altagamma. “At the identical time luxury firms outside Italy have grown into powerhouses…[so] size and scale are a problem,” she added.

Alessandra Gritti, vice chairman and chief executive officer of Tamburi Investment Partners, acknowledged the general sentiment and touted the role played by private equities in lightening the burden related to the scale issue and allowing firms in the posh sector to deal with industrial capabilities.

“In its proactive side, private equity [firms] have worked to scale up the scale of sectors where fragmentation was a problem,” she said. “We’ve got began to discuss industry again thanks to non-public equities, that’s the foremost accomplishment, when the financial sector supports the industry especially size-wise.…We’ve got given confidence to sectors that lacked standing to be in discussions with big groups,” she offered.

Although not all firms within the surveyed panel were able to share their 2022 financials, Nastasi offered that profitability for the posh sector is on the rise, inching up year-on-year for private luxury goods firms to 30.6 percent versus 28.7 percent in 2021, driven by apparel and accessories brands with profits accounting on average for 36.4 percent of their sales.

“The highest trends affecting the sector previously few years have been ESG, secondhand, which can be linked to sustainability, digitalization — the latter confirmed by most of the chief executive officers we interviewed,” Nastasi said. Despite inflationary pressure, demand for luxury and experience is solid and luxury goods are increasingly viewed as value-holding assets, he offered.

Although Lazzaroni contended that ESG mandates have barely lost priority for the industry previously couple of years, Gritti stressed that European regulations are expected to further increase their centrality.