Luca de Meo's Kering playbook: restructure, divest, refocus — before Florence showdown
Summary
Seven months after being appointed CEO of Kering (owner of Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta and Boucheron), Luca de Meo — the former Renault boss — is preparing to unveil his strategic plan on 16 April in Florence, at the home of Gucci, which alone accounts for around 44% of Kering's revenues and two-thirds of its operating profit. The group comes into the event stabilising: Q1 revenues were flat overall but Gucci still dragged, and the stock fell almost 9% on Wednesday afternoon after the release. De Meo has moved fast on three fronts: management reshuffle (Francesca Bellettini now running Gucci from 17 September, two new divisional heads — industry and client — joining the executive committee in May; ex-Renault colleagues recruited around him); portfolio simplification (the group is reorganised around four divisions — fashion & leather goods, jewellery, Kering Eyewear, corporate — served by five 'centres of excellence'); and balance-sheet repair (Kering sold its beauty division to L'Oréal for €4bn in October, refinanced prestige retail real estate including a Via Monte Napoleone building sold to a Qatari investor, and deferred by two years its option on Valentino, of which it owns 30%). Net debt was cut by €2.5bn between end-2024 and end-2025. 32 Gucci stores closed in 2025, with about 100 more closures planned. Source: Les Échos, 15 April 2026 — Virginie Jacoberger-Lavoué and Philippe Bertrand.
Delfineo's Take
Read together with our Hermès Q1 brief, this article completes the picture of European luxury bifurcating. Hermès still prints €4.07bn of quarterly revenue despite tourist headwinds; Kering is stabilising only because Gucci has been cut, restructured, and leveraged down. The De Meo playbook — management from automotive, ruthless footprint rationalisation, integrated industrial logic, store-by-store sales-per-square-metre scrutiny — is closer to a Renault-style turnaround than a traditional luxury reset. The tell on 16 April will be whether he commits to medium-term margin targets for Gucci (two-thirds of profit, currently broken) or gives himself a multi-year runway. A credible plan could reset the bear case; a soft one would confirm the structural damage.