A very strong brand, one only for Ferragamo, the Florentine luxury clothing group that has no second lines, known all over the world and 99% made in Italy. This is one of the company's strengths, as CEO Michele Norsa explained yesterday in Milan on the occasion of the road show for the public offer of ordinary shares in view of the listing on Piazza Affari.
Born as a women's brand, today Ferragamo sells products for men for 40% of its revenues. And in some countries, Mexico for example, menswear represents more than half of the turnover.
For the company chaired by Ferruccio Ferragamo, who recalled that there are now more than 70 descendants of his parents, and founders of the maison (the last one was born just a few days ago), America represents the first market while other areas of the world are growing rapidly. Asia-Pacific has already reached a share of 34%. Since 1993, when it entered the Chinese market with the opening of a space in Shanghai, there are already 55 stores in China, distributed in 32 different cities. In Australia, to cite a recent market, there are 17 directly managed stores, another five are in Vietnam, then Indonesia, India and so on. The goal, Norsa explained, is to open 10-15 new stores a year in China, another five or six in Europe and then again in Latin America, for a total of about thirty openings each year.
"But the strategic weapon - he added - will also be that of e-commerce which today still represents a limited share (less than 10% of sales) but is destined to rapidly penetrate among the younger clientele, which represents the great strength of the future".
“My father's great dream – said Ferruccio Ferragamo – was to be able to dress his clients from head to toe”. Yes, because Salvatore's success had started in Hollywood making shoes for divas. This dream, fully realized today, led the company to 781,6 million euros in turnover in 2010, with a net result of 60,8 million (7,8%). In the first quarter of this year, turnover rose to 210,4 million (+27,5 compared to the first quarter of 2010), with an Ebitda of 23,7 million (+38,3%) and a growing net result by 43,5% to 15,5 million.
As for the geographical areas, the increase in sales in the European market (+31,5%) and in the Asia Pacific area (excluding Japan), which recorded an increase of 42,3%, was particularly significant. Positive growth also in the Japanese market, despite the consequences of the dramatic earthquake.
In just three days, the road show obtained bookings for the entire sale offer (prices range from a non-binding minimum of 8 euros to a binding maximum of 10,50 euros per share, equal to a company capitalization between 1.3 and 1.7 billion euros). After London and Milan, the next stops will be Paris, Boston, London again and then the other main financial centres. Until the closing of the IPO scheduled for June 23, 2011.
