Armani and Zegna in prime position to go public

By

Dominique Muret

Published
Dec 18, 2014

There has been no change at the top of the ranking of the 50 Italian fashion and luxury companies with major potential to be publicly traded, carried out for the 9th consecutive year by consulting firm Pambianco in collaboration with PwC. The top three spots are taken by Giorgio Armani, Ermenegildo Zegna and Dolce & Gabbana.

Cosmetics brand Kiko and Stefano Ricci have also maintained their 4th and 5th place positions, while Gianni Versace moved up from 7th to 6th place. Noteworthy are the declines on the list of OTB (Diesel), Etro, Roberto Cavalli, Missoni and Ermanno Scervino, which have been overtaken by more mainstream brands like Calzedonia and Twin-Set.

Thirteen new companies joined the rankings in 2014, including Valentino, which took 17th place, Trussardi in 29th followed by Pinko in 30th. Other companies who also joined the rankings this year: Corneliani, Dondup, Stone Island and Blumarine. 

Conversely, thirteen companies fell of the rankings. "This doesn’t necessarily mean that their performance was negative, even if it was the case for certain companies. Rather, there were newly ranked companies whose results improved," said Pambianco, recalling that 29 companies have been continuously listed in the rankings for 4 years. 

The "Top 50" rankings focuses on Italian fashion companies that, on paper, meet the technical and objective requirements to be candidates for listing on the stock market within 3 to 5 years, according to Pambianco, which uses 8 criteria in putting together the ranking: the company’s size (a turnover of more than 50 million euros), its potential for growth, its operating profit over the previous three years, brand awareness, indebtedness, direct store number, and market segment. 

The total turnover of these 50 companies, selected from an initial sample of 944 companies, amounted to 16.3 billion euros in 2013, with a growth rate of 5.8% compared to 8.1% in 2012. Profitability (EBITDA) amounted to 15.8% of turnover, while their total net worth amounted to 11.2 billion euros.