Ferragni: retail branch goes into liquidation, 1.2 million burned in two years

The subsidiary Fenice Retail Srl, which was recently put into liquidation by Chiara Ferragni, lost just over EUR 1.21 million in the two-year period 2023-2024. This is what emerges from some documents consulted by Radiocor. The company, as its name suggests, dealt with the retail branch linked to the influencer's brand. Its liquidation came at the same time as the decision to close the store in Via del Babuino in Rome (after the one in Milan), announced by the fashion entrepreneur at the end of May.

Although small, Retail was, however, one of the reasons for the clash at the last shareholders' meeting on the accounts of the 'parent company' Fenice Srl between the sole director Claudio Calabi and the representatives of the 'dissident' minority shareholder, i.e. the entrepreneur Pasquale Morgese. Retail is in fact 100 per cent controlled by Fenice (whose shares, after the post-meeting capital increase, paid entirely by the influencer, are now 99.8 per cent in Ferragni's hands and the remaining 0.2 per cent in Morgese's). During the discussion of Fenice's annual accounts last March, Morgese's lawyer had contested 'the lack of documents made available to shareholders and, in particular, the absence of the financial statements of the investee Fenice Retail'. So much so that another representative of the footwear entrepreneur had pointed out that the parent company's balance sheet contained EUR 1.6 million in costs and write-downs relating to Retail, but 'in the absence of a closure forecast for the latter, the shareholders do not have sufficient elements to understand whether this amount is reasonable, excessive or lacking'. Doubts to which Calabi had replied, explaining how he had 'tried to find the best solution to ferry Fenice Retail towards a liquidation in bonis'.

Now come, in black and white, the figures for the subsidiary's liabilities, the subject of contention at the shareholders' meeting. In two years, Retail recorded revenues totalling EUR 644 thousand but with much higher costs, around EUR 2 million. Hence the final losses, amounting to around EUR 530 thousand in 2023, rising to EUR 684 thousand in 2024, i.e. the year in which the company suffered most from the effect of the so-called 'Pandoro Gate' (which broke out the previous Christmas). The liabilities thus led to the reduction of Retail's share capital to below the legal minimum, with negative equity, and the subsequent decision to dissolve the company (and appoint Calabi as liquidator again).

These are, in any case, losses in practice already covered by the maxi-capitalisation of EUR 6.4 million of the parent company Fenice Srl (which in 2023 and in the first eleven months of 2024 lost a total of around EUR 10.2 million). A capital increase, subscribed in recent months by the influencer, who has thus regained the absolute majority of the galaxy revolving around his brand.