Tod's renews efforts to acquire Roger Vivier

Premium Italian label Tod's has revealed plans to start re-negotiating terms to acquire footwear brand Roger Vivier by next summer,

as the label predicts sales to increase in 2015 after a sluggish demand from China weakened overall sales, reported Reuters.

Tod's was one of the many luxury companies to be hit by the slowdown in China, but came out worse than a number of its peers because of its over reliance on lower-margin footwear. During a conference on Thursday, Chief Financial Officer Emilio Macellari said that he expected sales to began increasing next year; “In 2015 the top line is expected to increase single-digit.”

Macellari added that the label had been working towards the acquisition of Roger Vivier, a brand which Tod's has produced and distributed since 2011 under a license agreement set to expire in 2016. The French footwear label is currently controlled by a private company owned by the Della Valle family, which includes the two brothers who control Tod's.

The CFO said that any possible transaction made for the footwear label would be done at a “fair market value,” to be decided by both sides. Last year Roger Vivier sales increased nearly 53 percent to 113.7 million euros, accounting for a tenth of the group sales. Although Tod's pays royalties of 12 percent for the wholesale of Roger Vivier goods, the brand's core profit margin is still higher than the group's average.

Discussions for the acquisition are most likely to begin next July to be concluded by the end of 2015 and come after Tod's tried to acquire the footwear label in 2011, when the license was up for renewal. "At the time it was not for sale. It is not for sale even today but it is a bit more likely that it can be done," concluded Macellari.