Brooks Brothers buy stake in Ballantyne's

Scottish cashmere manufacturer Ballantyne announced a partnership with Brooks Brothers and Massimiliano Zegna Baruffa.

Under the terms of the deal Massimiliano Zegna Baruffa has acquired a 55 percent stake and Brooks Brothers has bought a 25 percent interest. Ballantyne is to retain a 20 percent shareholding in the knitwear factory. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The company will operate under the name of JJ & HB 1788 Cashmere Mills, named after its original founding Ballantyne brothers and the year of establishment of the factory.

The arrangement is the result of a partnership that Brooks Brothers, the oldest surviving U.S. men's clothier, formed with 230-year-old cashmere knitwear manufacturer Ballantyne and Massimiliano Zegna Baruffa, the former chief executive of Italian yarn company Zegna Baruffa Lane Borgosesia.

As a result of the deal, Ballantyne will continue to produce its made-in-Scotland cashmere knitwear and Brooks Brothers will use the factory as its cashmere supplier for its stores around the world. The new venture will also make its production capabilities available to other luxury brands, allowing Ballantyne, which makes products under its own name and has its own retail stores, to expand its customer base.

Massimiliano Zegna Baruffa has been named chairman and chief executive officer of the business and will manage the operations "to guarantee the un-matched quality of the production and expand factory production capability and customer base," the company said.

"Brooks Brothers is an American icon," added Claudio Del Vecchio, chairman and chief executive officer of Brooks Brothers. "Our principle is to deal only in merchandise of the finest quality and for our cashmere knitwear, which is an ever more fundamental item for our customers, we found in the partnership with Ballantyne and Massimiliano Zegna Baruffa the ideal long term relationship."

"The partnership with Massimiliano Zegna Baruffa and Brooks Brothers represents an important step for our company" concluded Alfredo Canessa, chairman of Ballantyne. "We share with Mr. Zegna and Brooks Brothers the same values of top quality and in-depth product research and I am convinced that the balance of competencies contributed by the three partners will add further value to Ballantyne knitwear collections, preserving our unique Scottish heritage".