Jewellery group Michael Hill International will wind down three brands to simplify its overall business model as headwinds mount.
In an investor briefing presentation today, Michael Hill confirmed its responsibly sourced jeweller Medley will be wound down by the end of FY26, with sister businesses TenSevenSeven (high-end luxury) and Watches Galore being merged into existing operations at retailer Michael Hill and the group’s low-price offer Bevilles.
Across the closing brands, Watches Galore runs as a pureplay online retailer, which leveraged Bevilles’ watch inventory. The business will be redirected to Bevilles’ ecosystem.
Medley was a pureplay demi-fine/fine jewellery business, focusing on sustainability and responsible sourcing. With its wind-down, Michael Hill will undertake a customer migration.
Meanwhile, TenSevenSeven has reportedly shown the group that customer demand is strong for bespoke engagement rings, with average transaction values over four times Michael Hill’s average bridal transaction value.
Based on this success, the group is now running in store trials to scale bespoke ring building experiences across the global Michael Hill store network.
By the end of this rationalisation, the group will focus solely on Michael Hill in the mid-to-high pricing level, and Bevilles in the lower price space. Both brands have a total global store count of 282 stores, including 122 Michael Hill stores in Australia, 81 in Canada and 43 in New Zealand, alongside 36 Bevilles stores across Australia.
In the presentation, Michael Hill confirmed that around 14 per cent of Michael Hill’s total store network globally is in locations where both of its brands (Bevilles and Michael Hill ) operate in overlapping catchments in terms of price points.
In Australia specifically, that overlap jumps to 30 per cent.
Amid the portfolio shrinking, Bevilles is continuing its reset. Since being acquired by Michael Hill in April 2023, Bevilles’ head office and distribution centre were relocated closer to Michael Hill’s Australia HQ in Queensland, and broadened the product range. The group is projecting leadership changes up to December 2026 this year, alongside a product reset and revised customer value proposition.
In the long-run, this is expected to lead to improved competitive positioning and a stabilising performance.
This comes as the group’s Australia segment, which includes all brands, had a same store sales lift of 5.5 per cent in the third quarter of FY26.
In the first half of FY26, its Australian retail segment saw a sales lift of 2.1 per cent to $209.1 million, which was up by 4.8 per cent on a same-store basis.
Michael Hill did not share any specific sales for Bevilles alone, but the group’s FY25 annual report did show that a $7.4 million impairment expense of the Bevilles brand intangible asset was made during the last financial year.
For that year, the group’s Australian retail segment revenue increased by just 1.4 per cent to $364.1 million, and same store sales increased by 1.2 per cent for the year. Gross margin for the year was 59.7 per cent, down from 60.4 per cent in FY24.
Within this result, Michael Hill confirmed the acquired Bevilles business had expanded its store count to 37 in FY25, including seven stores in the new market of Queensland, but added the brand had seen challenging retail trading conditions suppress sales growth and margin.
“Trading conditions have also been particularly difficult in Victoria, where the brand was founded and the majority of the acquired stores are located,” the company shared in the FY25 annual report. As a consequence, the company paused further store expansion to ensure the business model is optimised before it can scale the network.
In FY26, Bevilles closed its Charlestown, New South Wales store, located new Newcastle, bringing the Bevilles store count to 36.