Danish company Pandora Holdings has acquired a 60 percent stake in Pandora Jewelry, the Australian distributor of Pandora jewellery.
Announcing the deal earlier today, Pandora managing director Karin Adcock said the new partnership would strengthen the high level of cooperation that exists between the two entities and help Pandora achieve its vision of becoming “the most recognised global brand in the jewellery market worldwide”.
She said Pandora’s Australian operations would continue business as usual with her role and that of the senior management team unchanged.
The new Pandora board will be made up of Karin and Brook Adcock in Australia and Mikkel Vendelin Olesen (Danish CEO) and Henrik Holmar (Danish CF0) in Copenhagen.
According to Karin, the new partnership will provide a strong platform to further develop the Australian business and will encourage a closer relationship between Pandora Australia and other markets including the US, the UK and Eastern Europe, which are all owned and operated by Pandora Holding.
“We will be able to share best practice policies, across borders and with the backing of Pandora Holding move forward confidently with our plans to firmly establish Pandora in the Australian and New Zealand jewellery industry, ensuring the future for us and our partners for many years to come,” she said.
Mikkel Vendelin Olesen also stressed that there would be no major changes for Pandora’s Australian operations.
“Australia has become one of our major markets and with our investment we have no intention of changing the way Australia does business but more so to learn and share ideas about what works with the rest of our global markets,” he said.
The takeover announcement follows another year of growth for Pandora in Australia with sales for the 2009 financial year in excess of $150 million – a 115 percent increase on 2008.
International sales in 2008 for Pandora were in excess of DKK 1.9b with Australia accounting for 20 percent of the world market, just behind the USA, which accounts for 30 percent.