It is one of the few Italian billion euro companies and one of the very few in the textile-fashion sector and will now go public on Wall Street. Ermenegildo Zegna, led by the third and fourth generation of the founding family, decided to grow through the stock exchange and chose New York. The announcement of the listing abroad is only partly surprising, considering that it is a globalized company.
The operation completed by the end of the year
Completion The listing will not take place through an IPO, but through a business combination with a Spac (Investindustrial Acquisition Corp), promoted by subsidiaries of Investindustrial di Andrea C. Bonomi. Upon completion of the deal, scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year, the Zegna family will continue to have control of the company with 62%, while Investindustrial VII will have 11% with lock-up for up to 3 years. Based on the transaction value, the merged entity will have an expected initial enterprise value of $ 3.2 billion with an expected capitalization of $ 2.5 billion.
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“No speculative logic, the group’s DNA will not be betrayed”
“It is not a financial project, but an industrial one. With a logic that is anything but speculative: we have a common and long-term vision, which will not betray the group’s 100-year-old DNA “, underlined with almost the same words Gildo Zegna, who will remain CEO and president of the company, and Bonomi, founder and president of Investindustrial. On the governance necessary for a listed company on the NYSE, Zegna explained: «Until now we have been a private company, but we have set ourselves the rules and objectives of a public company for many years. Also for this reason, in addition to having chosen the SPAC formula, it took a few months to finalize the details of the operation ». On the board, alongside the confirmation of Michele Norsa and Domenico De Sole, there will be the entry of Sergio Ermotti and Andrea C. Bonomi himself.
Possible new acquisitions for Zegna
Ermenegildo Zegna Holding had closed 2019, the latest available balance sheet, with revenues of 1.32 billion euros, a pre-tax result of 73.363 million and a net profit of 40.83 million. 2019 is precisely the level the company plans to return to at the end of 2021. In fact, Gildo Zegna was very clear about the future after Covid: «We plan to return to 2019 turnover in 2021, given the trend of these months. We do not exclude acquisitions of excellence upstream of the supply chain, such as that of a knitwear company made in June in partnership with the Prada group and not even of brands, as happened with Thom Browne in 2018. But the growth – he concluded – will be above all organic “.
Bonomi echoes him: «Zegna will not become a conglomerate of brands, but will continue to develop through acquisitions that are consistent with the history and strategy. There will be no opportunistic acquisitions. “According to the presentation to the financial community, the group expects to close the 2021 financial year with revenues, 51% realized in China, equal to 1.207 billion (-8%), an Ebitda of 264 million and an Ebit of 111 million. For the three-year period 2020-2021, an average annual growth of 11% in turnover is expected (1.342 billion in 2022 and 1.476 billion in 2023) and 25% of EBIT (142 million and 173 million).