Eton – a true Swedish fashion wonder.

Helping a Swedish shirtmaker become a global champion.

About Eton.

Eton is a premium men’s shirt company founded in 1928 in Gånghester, Sweden. Eton has built a strong brand with loyal followers by focusing on perfecting the shirt, using great fabrics and by offering artistic prints and designs. In 2012, Eton was looking for a partner to help them reach its goal to sell 1 million shirts per year.

Investment rationale.

Eton had the potential to become the preferred shirt-partner to the most prestigious department stores globally while at the same time strengthening its own direct to consumer sales and marketing channels. Litorina entered into the partnership with the Eton team to fund and actively support that journey.

Value creation initiatives.

  • Setting the foundation

  • Our first focus was to make sure we had the right team and competences onboard. This resulted in several new hires to strengthen the management team (including adding a new CFO, global sales manager and a retail & e-com manager). We also added resources across the company and in the board. During our four years as owner, the team at Eton doubled to 180 full-time employees.

 
  • Customer focus

  • Eton had the potential to work more closely with its existing department store customers to accelerate growth. First of all, the company increased its focus on the most successful department stores and invested in their joint success through growth partnership programs, and secondly, Litorina provided the necessary funding to buy two of Eton’s local distributors to better control our key markets.

 
  • New sales channels

  • Eton had a great potential to strengthen its online and retail presence. In 2013, we helped Eton launch its own e-commerce store which managed to reach close to SEK 50m in annual sales already by 2015. Eton also opened three brand stores across key markets – Stockholm, Copenhagen and a second store in London. The online store and brand stores increased brand awareness and generated great sales for Eton.

 

Result.

In 2015, Eton reached its target to sell 1 million shirts per year. At that time, Eton was the #1 selling shirt brand at Harrods in the UK, Harry Rosen in Canada, Saks 5th Avenue in the US and Selfridges in the UK.

During Litorina’s ownership sales growth increased to 20% per year. In 2015, Eton reached sales of SEK 650m with a 20% EBITDA margin – making Eton one of the true Swedish fashion wonders.

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