It Holding: from collapse to transfer of all companies

"Nice thing about dreams is, they are possible": writes Paris Group on its home page, and it really believes it, especially since it managed to bring home the jewel in the crown of It Holding, i.e. Gianfranco Ferré and the relative company branches like

Itc S.p.A., New Andrea Fashion S.p.A. and the foreign company Gianfranco Ferré Uk Ltd.

The transfer to the Arabs (the purchasing company belongs to the Sankari family of Dubai) of the fashion house founded by architect Gianfranco Ferré in 1978, subsequently acquired by It Holding in 2002, completes the divestment of all the assets of the former Molise luxury group. The first brand to be sold was Malo, the emblazoned cashmere label, transferred last autumn to the Evante group of Arezzo, while in January it was the turn of Ittierre, bought by the company Albisetti of Como.

With this transfer the new Ittierre was born, crystallising the vision of a new group that will go back to representing an industrial model of excellence for the 'Made in Italy' concept. Albisetti, with offices and works in the province of Como and a showroom in Milan, today manages a portfolio of brands under license and production with a reported turnover for 2010 of about 60 million Euros and 120 employees. “Our industrial plan”, said Antonio Bianchi, Managing Director of Albisetti “prescribes a significant route of growth based on the development of current licenses”. The licenses of Ittierre, however, no longer include Just Cavalli. At the end of January, in fact, Roberto Cavalli signed an agreement with Staff International, a company of Only The Brave, chaired by the founder of Diesel, Renzo Rosso, for the exclusive production and distribution of the Just Cavalli collections.

A relaunch in great style should also be awaiting the fashion house Ferré, the only one sold to a foreign company but whose production will remain in Bologna, where Itc, the factory that produces the first line founded by the designer who disappeared in June 2007, is based. Indeed, apparently, the chairman of Paris Group, Abdulkader Sankari, who will be in Milan on 25 February to watch the parade of the women’s collection, also wants to bring to Italy the other first lines under the Arab company: Cardin and Balmain. Moreover, the Arab group has guaranteed the safeguarding of 130 jobs out of a total of about 180. Paris Group prescribes an investment of 30 million Euros in 3 years and the opening of 50 shops. This is a plan that could return the original prestige to the brand and that, despite a few worries linked to the change of management, seems to have been favourably received by the fashion world.

So, is all well that ends well? It’s still too early to tell and certainly there is still a bad taste in the mouth due to the collapse of a group turning over 600 million Euros, which, for Molise, a region in the south of Italy hosting the general district of the company founded by Perna, represented by itself more than 10% of the entire regional gross domestic product. Two years from the application for compulsory administration put forward by Tonino Perna himself, given the impossibility of honouring the debts, it is clear that the bankruptcy is to be blamed on the fragility of profits, insufficient shareholders' equity increase, and the excessive use of financial capital, rather than the economic crisis that, obviously, aggravated a difficult situation.

From our correspondent in Milan

Photo: Gianfranco Ferré, spring 2011