Gucci Spells Out Plans for Porcelain Brand

ROME — The luxury goods maker Gucci detailed on Tuesday its blueprint for reviving Richard Ginori, the historic — and struggling — Florentine maker of porcelain tableware that it planned to acquire for €13 million.

“There are two essential factors that are pivotal to restructuring and re-launching Richard Ginori: respect for this historic brand and investment in its future,” the president and chief executive of Gucci, Patrizio di Marco, said Tuesday of the deal worth $16.8 million.

There was a time when Richard Ginori customized everything from tableware for luxury liners to dishware for high-end hotels and the Vatican. By the 1930s, it employed about 2,000 workers. But in January, it was declared bankrupt.

Gucci, which is owned by the French company PPR, said in Milan that it would financially restructure the porcelain brand and improve its outdated factory in Sesto Fiorentino, just outside Florence, where workers have been protesting daily since January.

Gucci said it would revamp the brand by focusing on the luxury segment and that the two brands, both based in Florence, would rekindle an old partnership to produce luxury tableware under the Gucci brand, “revisiting and drawing from the artistic legacy in the both companies’ archives.”

Items produced under the Richard Ginori brand will be sold through the Gucci distribution channels, especially in overseas markets, Gucci said.

The acquisition gives new life to a company founded in 1753 that appeared close to being felled by a series of unpopular management decisions and changing consumer tastes that have drastically reduced the market for upscale tableware. Many other storied brands — Wedgwood, Spode, Rosenthal — have not been able to survive similar challenges, exacerbated by competition at cheaper cost from China.

The deal also allows Gucci to compete in the high-end tableware sector, in a challenge to other luxury players like Versace and Giorgio Armani, which have years of experience in the sector.

Workers at the Sesto Fiorentino factory greeted the deal with satisfaction, but expressed concern that Gucci was planning to retain only 230 of 305 employees. “We still haven’t seen the business plan in details, but the real issue is the matter of 75 people being laid off,” said Giovanni Nencini, an employee and factory spokesman for the trade union Cobas.

“Italy’s current, dramatic economic conditions oblige us to try and save as many jobs as possible,” he said. “The employment situation in Italy is critical, there are no alternative jobs, so we have to try and keep as many workers as we can.”

The acquisition requires approval by union representatives and a majority of existing Richard Ginori sales distributors, and is expected to close next month.

Nearly a year ago, shareholders voted to shutter the factory and cut their losses, which amounted to €75 million. In November, court-appointed liquidators found a buyer in a joint venture of Lenox, the American tableware and giftware company, and Apulum, a ceramics producer in Romania. But legal details scuppered the deal, and the company was put up for sale again.

Gucci was the only bidder this month at a new auction overseen by a court in Florence. “The chance to safeguard and relaunch this historic Florentine brand is a unique opportunity for us, for Richard Ginori, for Florence, for Tuscany and for the success of made in Italy worldwide,” Mr. Di Marco said in a statement.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/business/global/gucci-spells-out-plans-for-porcelain-brand.html?partner=rss&emc=rss