PRADA China Agent Is "Abandoned" For Reverse Takeover Failure

Although the Chinese are the most forthright in the world today

On Monday (July 19th), Prada announced in an E-mail form that no one of the Prada family members would sell it to Lu Qiang, a Chinese businessman. The 94.9% stake of the company is still controlled by the Prada family and Miao cha Prada's husband,, while the remaining 5.1% shares are controlled by the joint St Paul bank.

Informed by relevant channels, the creditors of Prada company have announced that their loans will be postponed prior to the announcement.

This means that before the listing of Prada in 2012, the Prada family and Beth Lane could still hold most of the shares, while the acquisition plan of Chinese enterprises basically ran aground.

Due to the financial crisis, Prada, which was originally expected to be listed in 2008, is stranded not only on the listing plan, but also on five Italy banks with a debt of about 6 billion 200 million yuan.

Reporters learned from the relevant channels that two debt close to 4 billion 800 million yuan will expire this summer.

Unable to repay the debts of the five largest banks, Prada has mortgaged its shares to banks, and banks consider selling 40% of the group's shares to repay huge debts through public offerings.

In the past two years, he has been buying 13% of Prada's shares through a consultancy company that acquired 20 million euros in Shanghai, according to Lu Qiang, President of the company in Italy.

According to his idea, the purchase of up to 20% more, he can become the controlling shareholder of Prada.

However, after learning that "behind the scenes boss" is Chinese, Prada suddenly changed its face.

Lu Qiang pointed out that his acquisition team originally planned to invest 450 million euros to buy Prada shares held by creditor banks, but the latter suddenly raised the offer. Now it may not cost 700 million euros.

Nandu was informed that Prada's debtors had already postponed their loans.

While raising the purchase price to Lu Qiang, Prada also disclosed that it will restart its listing plan this year. Besides listing in Milan, Italy, it is also considering Hongkong listing.

On Monday, Prada again issued a notice denying the pfer of shares, which means that Prada has formally refused to buy from Chinese enterprises.

Lu Qiang also said that if the next week can not smoothly acquire the remaining shares, can not achieve the holding, he will sell the company's stake.

China's luxury goods report 2009 shows that China's total consumption of luxury goods has accounted for 25% of the world's total. For the first time, it has surpassed the United States, becoming the second largest consumer of luxury goods in the world after Japan.

Under such circumstances, no one would like to miss China's opportunity.

At present, 80% of the world's leading luxury brands have entered the Chinese market.

But while these companies are flocking to China, Chinese enterprises are only playing a leading role in risk sharing.

"It is impossible for China's local agents to do the Chinese market forever. Our aim is to quickly occupy the market. After 3-5 years, when the market is fully mature, the distributor's right to resellers will be recovered, and then distributors will be allowed to open up new markets in two or three tier cities."

Andrea, general manager of the Asia Pacific board of directors of Bella, revealed at the fifth luxury international summit held in Macao recently.

Reporter survey found that at present, the international brand "abandonment" part of the agent phenomenon has emerged.

Dickson Poon, a Hongkong tycoon known as the "brand name pan", ended 9 years of cooperation with the US clothing brand PoloR alphLauren at the end of 2009, but also lost the Tom m yHilfiger mainland China's agency power.

The American luxury brand Coach, known for its handbags, has also recovered the Chinese retail business from the agent Junsi group, leaving only 5 retail outlets operated by third party retailers.

"This practice makes the agent unwilling.

Because it takes a long period of investment to cultivate a market, especially for those brands that are not well known, publicity and promotion, shop decoration and distribution are huge investments in the past few years.

Unfortunately, because the brand controls the supply of goods, agents are often in a weak position in front of the brand.

A garment agent told reporters that in order to reverse this situation, many Chinese enterprises began to directly buy luxury brands in Europe and America.

In the Escada bankruptcy case, Chinese buyers tried to buy.

In September 2009, Hongkong Y G M trading company formally acquired the exclusive and absolute control of Aquascutum, an old British luxury brand.

The company was originally the general agent of the Greater China region.

The distorted consumption mentality refuses "made in China".

But Chinese companies have long been the buyers of luxury giants.

It is reported that Prada refused Lu Qiang's reason: "to the Chinese people, the quality and style will be worse."

According to the latest report of Bain consulting, China's luxury goods market grew by nearly 12% in 2009, accounting for 27.5% of the global market share, of which 50% of the luxury consumption was used to gift.

"In the concept of the new rich class in China, it is necessary to express its extraordinary taste and identity. The two symbols of Italy origin and Prada are indispensable."

A person who has been in the luxury industry for 5 years told reporters that once holding the controlling power of a top brand, Chinese enterprises can easily remind people of "made in China" and "Chinese design".

According to statistics from the global luxury report, 86% of Chinese customers are unwilling to continue buying or even return products because they are marked with "MadeInChina".

This makes those luxury brands who want to maintain "noble blood" have to be careful to keep distance from Chinese enterprises, which also exacerbates the difficulties of Chinese enterprises heading for luxury goods giants.