Benetton: Sisley is not for sale

London - Following the news that Alessandro Benetton, the son of the founders of Italian fashion company Benetton Group, has left the company board and rumours that Sisley is up for sale comes confirmation that the sister brand is not on the menu.

Gianluca Pastore, global marketing and communications director of the company, stated in a letter sent to the press Thursday afternoon, that Benetton Group has no plans at the moment to sell it’s Sisley brand. The statement’s publication comes not long after after several news reports began circulating in Italy that Benetton was preparing to spin-of its Sisley brand to help ease the pressure of its financial burdens.

However, the statement also specified that the Group’s turnover for 2015 amounted to a total of 1,529 billion euros, an amount which includes all the brands in the company’s portfolio. "With regard to losses of 280 million over five years, these are mainly non-recurring extraordinary costs, such as devaluation of assets, bad debts, restructuring costs. In the same period the total number of employees has increased," wrote Pastore.

The group also managed to wrote off its financial debt, generate cash and put in place an investment plan of 180 million euros for 2015-12017.