By COLlive reporter
Borsalino is holding on to its hat.
An Italian court has rejected a financial rescue plan by the new owners of the iconic hat maker in the northern town of Alessandria is pay its past creditors on Monday.
A local trade union leader told Reuters that a judge refused a request for court protection from creditors, who are owed some 18 million euros ($21 million).
Borsalino ran into financial difficulties after posting a large loss in 2013 and its former majority owner Marco Marenco was arrested by Swiss police in April 2015 on suspicion of financial crime, Reuters reported.
Borsalino was purchased 2 years ago by Haeres Equita, a consortium led by Swiss-Italian financier Philippe Camperio. The group invested 10 million euros and already reported a profit in 2015.
Sales in 2016 rose to 17.5 million euros and core profits more than doubled to 2.6 million euros, Reuters reported. It expected revenue this year to be in line with last year’s and sales to grow by 20 percent in 2018.
The company said that the judge’s decision will not stop production at Borsalino, which has 134 workers and makes some 150,000 hats a year, many of them worn by Lubavitch chassidim in the United States and Israel.
In a statement to COLlive.com, Haeres Equita said it intends to “carry-on the positive trend of the past 24 months, maintaining the heritage of an Italian manufacturing excellence with 160 years of history.”
Despite the court ruling, the company is continuing the production, distribution and promoting activities of the forthcoming collections, keeping all employees and maintaining the production site in Italy.
The owners explained that the bankruptcy reports are based on “technical and legal reasons which do not concern the business management of the brand’s activities by Haeres Equita.”
Camperio stated: “We continue our efforts to find solutions to preserve this iconic brand and the interests of all stakeholders: employees, suppliers, customers, the city and the institutions of Alessandria.”We therefore hope to continue to build a future for Borsalino.”
VIDEO: Inside Borsalino
Filmed by Gianluca Miotto, Edited by Daniel Finkelman
There will be no “Liquidation” or “Going Out of Business” sales any time soon….