Group Executive Chairman (formerly Chairman & CEO; effective Jan 1, 2026), Ermenegildo Zegna N.V. (Zegna Group)
Italian fashion house Zegna to go public via SPAC deal
“We don’t want to become a conglomerate. We want to seek collaboration with other partners,” said the CEO of the Italian fashion house Zegna. Gildo Zegna joins QMB as his company announces plans to go public through a SPAC deal.
Transcript (6 segments)
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Interviewer0:01
A bargain. Down 11%. Who wouldn't. A bounce back in retail. Healthy EU economy growing 13% in the past quarter year on year. Remember, it sounds great, but look at the number you're comparing to. Sales are coming back to pre-pandemic levels, which is good news. The company was founded more than a century ago as a wool mill in Northern Italy. Now it is going public in a more modern fashion. It is emerging as a SPAC to take private companies to the market. This is run by the former chief executive of UBS. This is the CEO of Zegna. He joins me by Skype. Good to see you. I appreciate your time. And why did you choose this particular vehicle? The reason, it has allowed the family to keep majority control at over 60%. Was that a factor?
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Ermenegildo Zegna1:06
Yeah. Hello, Mr. Quest, nice to be with you. We could have gone private, to be honest with you. We had the vision, we had a clear strategy. But the head of investing, a good friend of mine, came along and he created the SPAC and invited me to be part of it. Together we can go for a long journey and take advantage of the luxury business. And I think there are many opportunities that we can cash together. As a matter of fact, our family stays in full majority. I will stay CEO and Chairman. So I think it is the right time to become stronger in what we are doing already.
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Interviewer1:57
Not bad. The idea, and the way in which it has been constructed, consolidation within the luxury goods area. Now, I know you don't want Zegna to become a conglomerate of luxury brands and titles. You're shaking your head so I can see you're agreeing with me. You don't want it to become an LVMH. What do you want it to become? Where will you expand?
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Ermenegildo Zegna2:29
Yes. First of all, we don't want to become a conglomerate. But we want to see collaboration. So for example, we just bought a very fine company in Italy, Mr. Bertelli, to take advantage of the trend of precious knitwear, which will become a very important business in luxury, whether it is women or men. So that is a good example. The second example I can make in going for organic growth is to create a textile luxury laboratory platform, by which in the past couple years, we have bought specialties made in Italy of unique know-how to utilize the best know-how for our brand. We also own the Thom Browne company that we acquired a few years ago. So we make these fantastic resources and the best that Italy can offer for the brand, for the Thom Browne brand, and for other luxury brands. So I think it is a way to grow organically. And plus, we have several projects in the pipeline, and if other opportunities come along, we will consider them.
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Interviewer3:56
Right. I just want to quickly ask you, before we leave you, today's news on the Delta variant and the way in which that's causing people to rethink things like going back to work. The shops that you own, the mask mandates, the vaccine passports or vaccine manufacturing, are you in the process of rethinking as a result of worsening situations?
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Ermenegildo Zegna4:23
Well, I think that we unfortunately got used to this pandemic in 2020. In 2020, I would say, number one, in order to protect the health of our associates, the most important thing. We've been closed in our plants, but what we did, we created a small group of people that volunteered to produce masks and to produce hospital suits. That was a fantastic way to help and to give back and to be a contributor. With the news that dramatically affects the cost, we were able to collaborate with landlords to reduce the rent. So this year, as things get better, surely we see the next half a year. And hopefully, if things move along, I think we're going to go for a very, very interesting 2022.