Chinese Shangai-based private equity operator United Trademark Group acquired Italian accessories fashion brand Roberta di Camerino, in order to bring the brand back in shape after a long-running crisis. Roberta di Camerino’s ceo, Ercole De Cesare, and the management will be joined by Yuexi Pan and Cedric Devroye, UTG wrote in a statement.
UTG is a private equity operator who invests in undervalued fashion and luxury brands around the world in order to relaunch them on the Chinese market, helping them in founding local partners too.
Founded in Venice in 1945 by Giuliana Coen who since then changed its name in Roberta di Camerino, the company was sold in 2008 to Sixty Group, an Italian fashion group known for its casual wear with brands as Miss Sixty, Energie, Killa, Murphy&Nye e RefrigiWear. Mrs. Coen died in 2010 while Sixty Group entered an insolvency proceeding an year later and was acquired in September 2012 by Crescent HydePark European Opportunities Fund an Asian private equtiy operator headquartered in Singapore and Shangai, the same private equity operator who is now in the race in order to acquire Braccialini, an Italian accessories fashion brand which is instead in a very good shape (see a previous post by BeBeez).
When Sixty Group was sold, Roberta di Camerino brand remained in the portfolio of the trust of founder Wicky Hassan’s heirs (the trust being 66% controlled by minor heirs and 34% owned by company co-founder Renato Rossi), MF-Milano Finanza writes today. So it was the trust who sold the brand to the Chinese fund. As far as a United Trademark Group’s spokeman the company has been sold by a Luxembourg-based vehicle Roberta di Camerino sa.
