The Lardini recipe: Piazza Affari plus a short supply chain
di Silvia Pieraccini
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3' min read
3' min read
«To cater for the fashion industry’s demand for instant service you have to have your own kitchen». Andrea Lardini, chairman and CEO of Lardini, founded 41 years ago as a contract tailors in the little municipality of Filottrano, in the province of Ancona, and now a luxury men’s/women’s fashion brand, uses this ironic metaphor to describe the speed at which the sector is moving and to announce their most recent acquisition.
Lardini has secured a trouser production workshop that employs fifty people and which until now was a supplier to the Marche-based company; it is now an integral part of the business, strengthening its efforts to shorten the supply chain, a process being undertaken by many leading brands. “You need special products to cater for the needs of the market,” explains Andrea Lardini, who runs the company together with siblings Luigi (creative director), Lorena (head of finance) and Annarita (quality control). “The level of processing has increased and to keep up to speed you have to monitor the supply chain.”
Revenues at the €90 million milestone
A man with tailoring in his blood and a great believer in Italian quality, Andrea Lardini continues to invest in technology and human resources: 450 direct employees in the Filottrano factory (a town with a population of 9300), 1200 employed in the external workshops that work for the brand.
Indeed, production capacity remains the trump card of a company which has grown prudently and unhindered in the last few years - even during a challenging time for Italian fashion - complementing its classic productions for leading brands with the Lardini and Gabriele Pasini (acqui
red in 2013) brand collections, which now account for 60%: this year (the financial period closes at the end of September) revenues should hit the milestone of €90 million, up over 5% compared with 2018, with exports worth 70%.
But even more significantly, 2019 will be the year that Lardini is listed on the Borsa Italiana, its placement on the AIM market dedicated to SMEs almost a done deal. The listing, followed by Ubi Banca, will see a percentage close to 20% of the company’s capital floated on the market with the aim of earning around €30 million to dedicate to retail development.
