Pomellato with the accent on the last letter? The jewelery company seems to have taken the road that leads to France, into the arms of Francois Pinault’s PPR group. Swarovski and Prada would instead have lowered the flag. Also because the PPR group seems willing to shell out a fortune, sorry, a very high sum to conquer the Italian group which does a roaring trade (150 million turnover in 2012) with the Dodo brand. Monsieur Francois Pinault, according to the latest rumors, seems willing to pay a multiple of 15 times the ebitda, which in financial jargon roughly indicates the gross profit. The founder Pino Rabolini, on the threshold of 80 years, has in fact decided to give up. Also because he now only has full access to 10% of the capital, while the majority share is in the hands of Unicredit and 18% belongs to the Damiani family with the Sparkling holding. And they too are willing to give up. The PPR group, for its part, needs to strengthen itself in the jewelery sector (and respond, albeit on different levels) to the purchase of Bulgari by LVMH. PPR is currently headed by Boucheron and Girard Perregaux (with Jean Richard), who account for only 5 and 4% of revenues on PPR’s 2012 budget (6.2 billion euros).
