Italian fashion house Prada is among potential buyers of Versace, which parent company Capri Holding has put up for sale.
Informs about it the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. Last November, Tapestry, which owns the Coach brand, backed out of an offer to buy Capri, which also owns the Michael Kors brand, among others, for $8.5 billion (CZK 207.1 billion). After that deal to create a U.S. luxury conglomerate fell through, Capri hired Barclays to explore other strategic options, including selling the Versace and Jimmy Choo brands, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. One of them did not rule out the possibility of selling the entire Capri Holdings group.
According to the report, Prada is working with Citi Bank. She also collaborated with Prada in the past on a dual listing project, i.e. trading the company’s shares on two different stock exchanges at the same time. However, the project eventually fell through. Prada declined to comment on the report when asked by Reuters.
In November, the Capri group reported a bigger-than-expected drop in sales. This was due to a slowdown in demand for luxury goods worldwide and errors in the implementation of the company’s strategy. The Versace brand accounted for a fifth of the Capri Group’s sales of $5.2 billion in the last fiscal year, i.e. until the end of March 2024.
Prada is defying the industry’s downturn. Its third-quarter sales rose 18 percent at constant exchange rates.
The Versace brand was founded in 1978 by the late Italian designer Gianni Versace, and his sister Donatella is the creative director. The company is known for bold, flamboyant prints, including the iconic Medusa motif.
According to the Italian newspaper, one of the questions remains the valuation of Versace in the event of a sale, as the luxury sector is now struggling and transaction multiples are not reaching the levels of a few years ago. Capri Holdings bought Versace in 2018 for around 1.83 billion euros (45.9 billion CZK). The brand has grown since then, and in 2023 its sales totaled more than USD 1.1 billion (CZK 26.8 billion). However, its further development was halted by the decline in global demand for luxury goods.
Source: zpravy.tiscali.cz
