Pierre Cardin for sale for €1bn

French fashion house Pierre Cardin, named after it's 88 year-old eponymous designer, is up for sale. After more than six decades in fashion and a previously failed sale, Cardin is ready to sell his business for €1 billion. According to the Wall Street

Journal, a recent estimate valued the business at €200 million—but it remains unconfirmed due to a lack of available financial information. Pierre Mallevays, a former LVMH executive, says it could be worth about four times the amount of annual sales, but it's not clear how much these are.

The brand, which went from being a luxury label in the 60s, 70s and even 80s, became a mass market company with over 400 licensee partners world-wide. These days Pierre Cardin can be clothing, food, restaurants, even bicycles and furniture. Due diligence is therefore nightmare as valuing the full company and licenses is difficult.

Several years ago, Mr. Cardin wanted to sell his business for €500 million, but there were no offers at the time. The designer says he's serious about selling this time.

The brand which first became known for its avant-garde and space-age styling, no longer is a key player in the luxury fashion realm. In France, Cardin has only one boutique,on the ground floor of his Paris headquarters. It doesn't see much customer traffic. A runway show organised last autumn didn't attract any top press or buyers.

A native of Venice, Mr. Cardin moved to Paris and designed for Christian Dior before launching his own couture house in 1950. In the 1960s, when fashion was shedding the heavy skirts and dresses of the post-war years, Mr. Cardin made a futuristic statement with linear dresses and pants in stiff wool and plastic. Like other fashion companies such as Dior and Gucci, he expanded his empire with licensed products removed from fashion. But he went much farther, starting from a first license for porcelain crockery in 1968. There are now Cardin toilets, strollers and heating units.

In the 80s and 90s fashion companies began to reign in their licenses as they had an ill effect on image and global reputation. Now, fashion houses carefully handpick their licenses in areas that are related to the core business. Pierre Cardin, on the other hand, is happy to sell his name to thousands of products world-wide.

"He's the extreme of fashion licensing," says Valerie Steele, director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. "Though it's been wildly successful for him financially, it has diluted his image."

In recent years, sales and profits at several of Mr. Cardin's subsidiaries have continued to slowly increase, according to the company's public records. Still, there is no global picture of his finances. Mr. Cardin says he has met with an English investor three times, as well as with Chinese and American investors. There is one major condition for the sale: He isn't ready to hang up his scissors.

"I want to remain as creative director," he says. "It would be in their interest for the brand's image."

Source: Wall Street Journal Image: Pierre Carding