Italy Luxury Underwear Company La Perla Will Be Listed In Paris Tomorrow.

La Perla, a luxury underwear company in Italy, will be listed in Paris, France this week, hoping to get more financial support and plan to acquire more luxury brands in the future.

Unlike the usual sense of IPO, La Perla will not issue any new shares or sell old stocks through the listing. According to CEO Pascal Perrier, the move is aimed at "enhancing brand awareness and enhancing brand access to capital". He also disclosed in an interview with Reuters that he plans to acquire more luxury brands in the future.

La Perla will be landing on the Growth Market section of Euronext, which needs to be more lenient than other sectors. The target market value of the brand is 473 million euros. Its shares will begin trading on Friday.

In 2018, sales of La Perla were 106 million euros, down 20.7% compared to the same period last year, operating losses of 91 million 300 thousand euros, and a loss of 179 million euros in the same period last year. The plan is to achieve breakeven in the medium term. La Perla current liabilities amounted to 103 million euros.

Pascal Perrier revealed that the La Perla brand will focus on the core underwear business in the future, and give up some product lines which are inconsistent with the brand development direction, including footwear, handbags, and even some garment business to reduce costs. He said: "this is just our first step. Our goal in the future is to invest more in the luxury industry, buy more brands, and not just in underwear."

Other measures include streamlining distribution networks, developing online e-commerce and so on. La Perla will not continue to perform in New York and Macao, and has disbanded the design team responsible for these show related series. As of June 30th, La Perla has 70 boutiques in the world, 44 of which are direct stores, 36 stores, and 24 discount outlets.

La Perla was founded in 1954 and is headquartered in Bologna, Italy. After rapid development, the brand has declined gradually since 2007 due to market competition, rising production costs and poor management.

In February 2018, Holland private equity fund Sapinda acquired La Perla parent La Perla Global Management (UK) Limited 100% stake in the news. (see historical report: Italy luxury underwear brand La Perla was bought by Sapinda, a private equity fund of Holland). In the same year earlier in February, due to declining performance, it was unable to pay high rent, and La Perla was reported to the court by the landlord.

Sapinda's co-founder and CEO, German entrepreneur Lars Windhorst, was once trapped in the vortex of bankruptcy, fraud charges and civil action. Recently, he became a hot topic again because of the massive outflow of funds from Asset Management Co H2O Asset Management. H2O Asset Management is the second largest shareholder of La Perla, holding a 9.5% stake.

In July of this year, La Perla announced the launch of the restructuring plan and said that it would lay off 1/4 of its employees. Since the La Perla did not mention any layoffs in the announcement, the decision immediately triggered a 16 hour strike.