Expansion has been fast with one new store opening in New York’s Madison Avenue last year, the first in the United States, and another in Singapore links of london. There are plans to open a third Hong Kong store, on Kowloon side, this year and talks are under way in Japan.
”We plan to take the business on to a much bigger global scale,” says Ms Ducas. “China is very much on the cards Links of London Rings. We are talking to someone who wants to open 25 stores there.
”We have looked at it project by project and made sure that each part of the business could be independently successful,” says Ms Ducas. “This year we will turn over GBP40 million. The business has grown 35 per cent this (Links of London Necklaces) year in terms of turnover and we are projecting another 40 per cent in 2001.”
Low overheads have meant profits each year, from an initial investment of GBP2,000. A stock-market listing is possible in the next few years.
Ms Ducas’ job has evolved since those early days when she would come up with a design, make sure it was executed correctly, pack boxes and ship orders. Today, a staff in Britain of 120 bears some of the workload. Ms Ducas works at home two days a week to spend time with her children, with another addition to the family due in August.
At the heart of it all is a love for the work and the products.
”Every day I learn something new,” she says Links of London Necklaces. “The important thing is I still love the business. When it is not fun anymore, then we need to think again.”
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SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNNfn ANCHOR, BUSINESS UNUSUAL: You could say Ayton is a worldly man. Back in the ’80s, when John Aton met his future wife at an ex-patriots ball in Hong Kong, he was a frustrated young law clerk. Today, nearly two decades (20:21:10) later, he and his wife sit atop a global high-end Links of London Jewellery brand based in the UK. So how did Ayton get from A to B? Well, it all started with a pair of (20:21:20) silver salmon cufflinks. Joining me now to explain, John Ayton, chairman and co-founder of Links of London. Welcome.
JOHN AYTON, CHAIRMAN, Links of London Rings: Good evening.
LISOVICZ: We hear a lot of great stories about people who have a brilliant idea for a new (20:21:30) business. But you were in what my British friends would describe, you were fishmongers in Links of London Bracelets. You ran a fish store. You supplied fish to restaurants and it all started with a holiday present (20:21:40) that your wife designed.
AYTON: We, every Christmas, we had to give the chefs a present and Anushka (ph) my wife, had the idea of designing a fish pair of Links of London Earrings because (20:21:50) most of the chefs were men at that point in time. And it was a great success.
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Links of London is a small business that is flying high — literally. AT & T Inc. (NYSE:T) and Marquis Jet(SM) announced that Links of London Links of London Jewellery, a dynamic international jewelry brand, is the winner of a 10-hour Marquis Jet Card; fleet by NetJets(R) in the AT & T “Exclusively Business” sweepstakes for small businesses.
Links of London, which has its U.S. headquarters in New York, was one of 5,400 small businesses to enter the sweepstakes, which was conducted to mark the launch of AT & T’s Exclusively Business program for wireless small business customers. The AT & T Exclusively Business program provides valuable benefits that are specifically for small businesses Links of London Charms, such as exclusive savings and dedicated support.
Andrew Marshall, managing director of Links of London, was presented with a Marquis Jet Card, which gives the company access, with as little as 10-hours notice, to a NetJets Citation V Ultra jet for travel within North America for up to seven people.
“We were very flattered to be chosen as the winner of the AT & T Exclusively Business sweepstakes,” Marshall said Links of London Necklaces. “We certainly will put our prize to good use. Beyond New York, Links of London has stores across North America, including Toronto, Las Vegas and San Francisco, and we plan to use the Marquis Jet Card to save valuable time and increase our productivity when we make visits to those properties Links of London Bracelets.”
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There is money to be made in precious gems links of london, as long as you pick your stones carefully
In February 2006, the London jeweller Laurence Graff paid a record $3.6m (GBP1.8m) for an 8.62-carat Burmese ruby at Christies in St Moritz. The sale represented a new high for coloured gemstones and came on the back of several years of continuous price growth for high-quality, untreated stones at auction Links of London Bracelets. The per carat price of $425,000 compares favourably when set against even the most expensive diamond sales of recent times. High-end sales such as the Graff Ruby certainly garner headlines, but investors require patience and specialist knowledge to succeed in this market.
Market data is at a premium
The worldwide market for jewellery and precious stones is thought to be worth in the region of GBP78bn annually. Around 82 per cent of this figure relates to the trade in diamonds and gold; platinum accounts for another 6 per cent and coloured gemstones have a market reputedly worth around GBP7.5bn. This figure is open to dispute, as few authoritative production estimates are circulated Links of London Rings. This latter point underlines one of the principal reasons why investors considering a foray into the gemstone market should tread carefully: this segment of the mining sector remains highly fragmented and reliable data can be hard to come by.
Industry standards are the key
A number of trade bodies, such as the International Coloured Gemstone Association (ICGA), are intent on raising the profile of gemstones from both the retail and investment angles. Unfortunately, none of these bodies has comparable influence, or are co-ordinated to the same degree, as De Beers or The World Gold Council, the information resource for gold, investment, jewellery, science and technology, historical and culture” target=”_blank World Gold Council. The former effectively created today’s retail market for diamonds from scratch, but it could be argued that its long-held dominance of the industry might well have damaged its investment status. If organisations such as the ICGA aspire to replicate the success of the De Beers marketing campaign, they might be better advised to look at a different model. Throughout much of the 20th century, De Beers accounted for between 70 to 85 per cent of world trade in uncut diamonds. And when a single body controls the supply side of any market, it is in an ideal position to bolster or regulate prices and production as it sees fit. Even if significant inroads were to be made in the retail market for coloured gemstones, the fact that there are so many disparate producers within the industry has made it difficult to apply uniform standards for production and processing, which are needed to underpin an equitable investment market. However, there are signs that this might be changing.
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