Zeis Excelsa, the Italian company owner of well know shoes brands such as Dirk Bikkembergs, Cult, Docksteps and Virtus, was admitted by the Fermo Court to a reserve preventive bankruptcy arrangement procedure which implieas protection from creditors and was allowed time till next August 6th to prepare an arrangement proposal in order to reach either a definitive bankruptcy settlement or a debt restructuring agreement (see here the Court’s decree).
The company is now controlled by the Pizzuti family and used to be partly owned by the Fondo Italiano d’Investimento (FII) together with other Italian SMEs that were sold by the FII to the US asset manager Neuberger Berman and then, for a minority stake, to the Milan- listed veichle NB Aurora (see here a previous post by BeBeez ).
The sale of the SMEs portfolio to Neuberger Berman was signed last December 2017. In the meantime, stating from December 2017, Neuberger Berman has been selling stakes in five companies (United Coatings, Geico Lender, Labomar, Brugola and Surgital) so the sale of part of the SMEs portfolio to NB Aurora involved just stakes in 17 SMEs (see here the press release by NB Aurora).
Coming back to Zeis, the company being part of the Elite community of Borsa Italiana, has been facing financial tensions for a while as in 2015 already it has posted a 5 million euros negative ebitda after 66 million euros in revenues and a 17.5 million euros net financial debt (see here a previous post by BeBeez). That’s why FII made a 1.5 million euros write-off for its 19.99% stake that was bought in 2012 to a book value of just 0.9 million euros. In 2016 revenues were down to 51 millions, with a 4.9 millions negative ebitda and 13.6 millions in net financial debt (see here an analysis by Leanus, after free registration and login).
