PIERRE Cardin, at 88 still a top name in clothes design, said he wants to sell his label while retaining artistic control, but some say his price of a billion euros is far too high and the brand overused.
Cardin, one of the first to take French fashion design labels into Asia in a big way and one of the first to develop brand licensing, told the Wall Street Journal: “I want to sell it now.”
The Cardin brand has put its stamp on hundreds of products from shirts to bottled water and real estate: some say too many.
One of the great visionary stylists of the 1960s, Cardin’s commercial strategy was equally revolutionary. He was the first of the designers for the rich-and-famous to launch a ready-to-wear collection, the first to move into men’s fashion – and the first to sell his brand-name.
Cardin was also ahead of the game when he ventured into China, India and Japan, respectively 30, 50 and 45 years ago.
Today consumers in Asia are among the biggest customers for luxury products and designer clothes, and French luxury goods companies are global leaders.
“I know I won’t be here in a few years and the business needs to continue,” said Cardin, who does not have an heir. But on one condition – that he remain creative director: “It will be in the interest of the brand’s reputation,” he said.
But Cardin is asking too much for the brand and his talent, judged hard-nosed bankers who value the business at closer to $298.5m (£180.37m), just one fifth of the one billion he told the newspaper he is seeking.
Financial data for calculating valuations is thin because the Cardin empire is not quoted on any stock exchange and so is not obliged by listing rules to provide detailed figures such as sales volumes.
At business consultancy Savigny Partners, senior manager Pierre Mallevays said: “A brand like Cardin does not increase (in value) like a normal brand because it is entirely based on licence revenues.”
Valuations are reached by applying a multiplying ratio to licence income streams, he told reporters. “Financially, Pierre Cardin is a very big deal because all these licences generate a lot of royalties,” he said.
Cardin explained his pricing logic, on the basis of $14.92m (£9.01m) per product per country, “which is nothing at all”, he said. “One thousand products, 100 countries, that’s how it calculates. It’s nothing.”
The group employs 450 workers but owns only one Cardin shop in France. However, it manages some 900 licences throughout the world and indirectly employs some 200,000 people.
Cardin was also one of the pioneers of licensing, a capital-efficient method of developing a business by selling the right to sell branded products.
Cardin has since built up an eclectic range of businesses and brands, including the exclusive Maxim’s restaurants, and also high-end furniture, and perfume.
“I own 100 per cent of everything that I need. I can drink my own wine, go to my own theatre, eat in my own restaurants, sleep in my hotels on my own sheets, dress in my own clothes and use my own perfume,” Cardin once said.
In 2009, Cardin sold 32 textile and accessory licences in China – but not its brand – to companies Jiangsheng Trading Company and Cardanro for 200 million euros.
Although there are no publicised buyers for the Cardin business, US group Iconix Brand may be a bidder, a source familiar with the deal said.
But top names such as LVMH and PPR are less interested because they “want to control the brands they own. Cardin, on the other hand, gave a multitude of licences,” the source added.
“Pierre Cardin is a brand that was at times a little too exposed, too used, too franchised and in a way intangible assets were greatly squandered,” said Laurent Habib, who heads the Paris-based Observatory on Intangibles.
