Samantha Cameron Studio Files First Accounts, Sticks to Plan
LONDON — Samantha Cameron Studio Limited, owner of the Cefinn contemporary clothing brand, has filed its first financial statements with Companies House in the U.K. The company, which launched in 2016, also confirmed it is on track with its business plan.
Cefinn, an acronym of Samantha Cameron’s children’s names plus an extra C, launched in 2016 and began trading last year. It sells via its own website and at outlets including Selfridges, Net-a-porter, Matchesfashion.com, The Modist and Fenwick of Bond Street.
The accounts, published early Thursday on Companies House, the official register of U.K. businesses, are unaudited and abbreviated: British companies are required to file a full, audited profit and loss statement only when turnover exceeds 10.2 million pounds.
For the financial period ended Oct. 31, 2017 the business had assets of 271,828 pounds and registered 561,795 pounds in losses, which is not unusual for a clothing start-up such as Cefinn. Cameron is the sole director of the company, which had 10 employees at the time of the filing.
Cefinn had been trading for nine months when the accounts were filed at the end of fiscal 2017. Although the company does not disclose turnover, it said sales have doubled in the past three months of the current fiscal year compared with the corresponding period in 2017.
The company said performance has been “above expectations” in the first nine months, with half of the business coming from e-commerce and the balance from wholesale, with strong sell-throughs and re-orders. In the first week, Cefinn notched 110,000 pounds in gross turnover on the website alone.
Cefinn has since launched a multi-currency websites, in dollars and euros, and ships to 26 countries, although the majority of sales are from the U.K.
The price positioning has been working and margins are on target, the company added. The label is positioned in the contemporary segment, with dresses ranging in price from $380 for a sleeveless, asymmetrical shift dress to $590 for a wool midi-dress.
Dresses are proving to be the strongest category, followed by trouser suits. Cefinn said the plan is to keep growing and to develop marketing strategy and customer acquisition.
Samantha Cameron, Britain’s former first lady who’d spent much of her professional career at Smythson as an executive, and later a creative consultant, started Cefinn herself. She later welcomed Venrex Investment Management as an investor. Venrex’s other investments include Charlotte Tilbury and Orlebar Brown.
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