Italian buyout firm Investindustrial is in advanced talks to buy Sergio Rossi, the maker of luxury shoes now owned by French luxury giant Kering, Bloomberg wrote yesterday.
The sale of Sergio Rossi has been expected by several months as Kering decided to dispose of Rossi after a strategic review (see here a previous post by BeBeez) and last July Emerisque fund seemed instead to be the favourite bidder over Investindustrial and Lion Capital‘s bids.
Last February, presenting 2014 year accounts for Kering, the group’s ceo François-Henri Pinault said that Kering might decide to sell Sergio Rossi. “We started a strategic revision of the Sergio Rossi brand in order to check the opportunity to keep it in our portfolio for the medium-long term” and “sale is an option”, Pinault said.
Sergio Rossi’s revenues have been dropping year after year since 2004 when it reached 99 million euros in sales. In 2013 revenues were 92 million euros and in 2014 dropped to 83 millions together with a drop in ebitda.
