No Retirement For Armani

This year marks the 30th anniversary for Giorgio Armani. The minimalist fashion house is reportedly worth £2 billion, and is complemented by a 300-shop, 5,000-employee global empire and become the most successful designer in the £10 billion world-wide fashion industry. It may be 30 years since he founded his business but Giorgio Armani was a late starter. Now he has just turned 70. In an industry where you are considered old at 40 - Gucci's superstar designer Tom Ford quit recently, aged 42 - what everyone wants to know is: can the one-man brand play on?

The company, as it stands, has no deputy and has not anointed an in-house successor. Armani is chairman, chief executive, chief designer and sole shareholder of his vast business. When will he retire and what will happen after he quits? In an exclusive 30th anniversary interview with The Sunday Times, he said: "I can't put a date on retirement. It could be in the year 3000. I feel young and I am someone who believes in modernism. I am somewhat driven and always ready to embrace new opportunities."

Armani believes he has got what it takes to go on for at least another decade. "I have not fallen into the trap of becoming ridiculous. I have not had a facelift. I do not dye my hair. I take care to dress my age. Unless I suddenly fall ill, I cannot imagine giving up a part of my company or handing it over to somebody else." The idea of an 80-year-old on the catwalk may sound preposterous. It will certainly alarm industry observers who say that, by delaying his succession, Armani risks weakening his brand. Nigel Nicholson of London Business School said: "It is common for heads of family businesses not to think about the future, to think they are immortal, but this does not serve business interests."

He may not be immortal, but Armani is nothing if not fashion's great survivor. His rivals - Yves St Laurent, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Valentino Garavani and Gianfranco Ferré - quit their front-line design roles years ago, but he remains at the helm of a company that announces record results almost every year. The firm's most recent figures show that group sales in the first half of 2004 were up 8% to €644m (£448m) compared with the same period a year earlier. Pre-tax profits rose 23% to €89m. Net cash reserves stand at some £150m. Armani is one of only three Italian companies in the list of the top 100 global brands, drawn up by the analyst Interbrand.

Few would bet against Armani continuing for another five years at least. Indeed, the older he gets, the harder and faster he seems to be working, searching for new areas to conquer. Bernard Arnault, boss of the French luxury-goods giant LVMH, and Domenico De Sole, formerly Tom Ford's business right-hand man at the Gucci Group, have each approached Armani. They want to buy the brand and could easily afford the £2 billion tag. But Armani has spurned their offers.

He acknowledges that he will have to sell one day. He does not want to give his two nieces and his nephew who work for him "the huge responsibility" of taking over the family firm, he rejects a stock-market listing and the vast price tag rules out a management buyout. But he is determined that the world's best-known and most consistently profitable label will not be swallowed up by one of the luxury-goods conglomerates.