Flos B&B Italia Group, focus on brands for new development phase

It has been a year of reorganisation and strategic reshaping of the group, to give each company the chance to express itself as a company and, above all, to fully express its specificity and identity. After all, the companies that are part of the Flos B&B Italia Group (jointly controlled by Carlyle and Investindustrial) have identity and character to spare: Flos, B&B Italia, Louis Poulsen, Maxalto, Arclinea, Azucena, Audo Copenhagen and Lumens: these are the brands that are part of the holding company, one of Italy's largest industrial companies in the sector, which as of September 2025 had achieved LTM results (last twelve months' takings) of €733.5 million, slightly down (-1.3%) from the September 2024 LTM results of €743 million).

'In the previous industrial plan, the group had a planned investment and exit strategy that concerned the holding company as a whole. With my arrival, we decided, in agreement with the shareholders, that the companies in this group needed a different strategy,' explains Piero Gandini, executive chairman of FBBI since January 2025, who returned to the group (which he had helped found in 2018 in the same position), which he had left in 2019.

'Each brand has its own identity. They are companies with very strong DNA, and our goal must be to enhance their specificities, to strengthen them, to refine them,' Gandini adds. 'Obviously we must first organise them to make them efficient, but we must keep their identity alive. Because, in my opinion, if we try to find synergies aimed at a hypothetical super-efficiency at any cost, the risk is to lose effectiveness'.

The new development project, which began a year ago and has now entered its second phase, therefore envisages the valorisation of each company as a single 'unit', each with its own management and development plan, and the exit of investors will also take place, in the future, from the individual companies, at different times. At the same time, the structure of the holding company has been lightened, although central coordination, control and support will remain, in order to ensure possible collaborations, osmosis and synergies.

"This is the work we have done over the last 12 months and now we are ready to grow these companies," says the entrepreneur. "But we are not in a hurry: we know that the market context is not at all easy and it is not easy either to give a reading of the numbers, which are often not very consistent with each other. As far as retail distribution is concerned, some geographies are suffering, such as the United States, while others are growing, such as Asia. Even in Europe, the situation differs from country to country. Other channels, such as wholesale, are shrinking, while that of large projects continues to grow, even in the Gulf area affected by the war in Iran. 'It is complex and expensive to get the goods in, but we continue to receive orders,' Gandini notes.