Borsalino, celebrated Italian millinery brand that fell into liquidity last year, has found a saviour in private equity firm Haeres Equita.
The Swiss-Italian financier was reportedly the only taker for the historic luxury hat maker at its auction sale in the city court of Turin, situated a little north of Milan. The investment group led by Philippe Camperio is paying a total of 6.4 million Euros to acquire the brand and was already handling operations for Borsalino since 2015.
Camperio had already purchased the brand’s trademark in May 2017 for a whopping sum of 18 million Euros and this is why, perhaps, there no other takers for the luxury hat business.
According to Camperio, the firm has injected more than 10 million euros to improve production, improve creativity and branding efforts which led to a growth towards 17 million Euros in 2017 from 15.5 million euros in both 2016 and 2015.
Borsalino is a famous favourite of international celebrities like Rihanna and Jude Law and especially rose to fame through the product’s prominent presence popular films like Casablanca and a namesake 1970 action movie Borsalino.
Even with such a strong brand name and popular appeal, the brand struggled to make profits in the last decade. This is in part due to the Italian financial crisis set in motion in 2008 as well as Borsalino’s majority owner Marco Marenco being involved in a major bankruptcy and fraud case that led to his arrest in 2015.
Owing to the newly minted deal, Haeres Equita will now attain complete ownership of the brand’s offices, its production site and machinery as well as its 134 contracted workers and store partnerships including one fully owned flagship shop.
