italian cosmetic company Intercos, denim fashion group Dondup, luxury shoes brand Giuseppe Zanotti, mobile accessories CellularLine and jjewelries retail chain StroiliOro are all going into the portfolio of  private equity fund L Catterton, a new private equity firm born from an alliance between Groupe Arnault (holding company of Mr. Bernard Arnault, founder of French luxury giant Lvmh), Lvmh itself and the US private equity firm  Catterton (download here the press release).
The latter about one year ago had bought a minority stake in Intercos and among its partecipations count the one in the iconic crystal brand Baccarat. As for L Capital’s private equity funds, they actually own stakes in Dondup, Giuseppe Zanotti, CellularLine e StroiliOro, while signed an agreement last Novembre to sell to BC Partners a minority stake in Cigierre, holding company owner of Old Wild West tex mex restaurnts and other etnic restaurants in italy.
The new partnership will combine Catterton’s existing North American and Latin American private equity operations with Lvmh and Groupe Arnault’s existing European and Asian private equity and real estate operations, currently conducted under the L Capital and L Real Estate franchises. Under the terms of this agreement, L Catterton will be 60% owned by the partners of L Catterton and 40% jointly owned by Lvmh and Groupe Arnault.
L Catterton will be headquartered in Greenwich (Connecticut) and London with regional offices across Europe, Asia and Latin America. LCatterton will be led by global co-ceos J. Michael Chu and Scott A. Dahnke, currently managing partners at Catterton. Each fund will continue to be managed by its own dedicated team in their respective locations across Europe, Asia and the Americas. The transaction is expected to close early in 2016, subject to customary regulatory and certain investor approvals.
