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Fashion Jobs
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Published
Nov 12, 2009
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Luxury sunglass maker Safilo warns rescue may fail

By
AFP
Published
Nov 12, 2009

MILAN, Nov 12, 2009 (AFP) - Italian sunglass maker Safilo, which produces fashion items for Dior, Gucci and Giorgio Armani, warned on Thursday 12 November that a rescue recapitalisation by a Dutch fund might fall through.

Safilo

Safilo also said that in the first nine months of the year, it made a net loss of 186.2 million euros (279 million dollars) from a net profit of 14.5 million euros in the same period of last year.

Sales fell by 10.5 percent to 774.7 million euros.

Safilo, a world leader in making sunglasses under licence for top fashion brands, said that recapitalisation by Dutch fund Hal might collapse, leaving it unable to pay its debts and creditors.

The rescue is conditional on Hal acquiring within six days 60 percent of high-yielding Safilo bonds, falling due in 2013, which are in circulation.

But this target is far from being achieved.

Safilo said in a statement late on Wednesday 11 November that it had been told by Hal that bondholders owning only 1.03 percent of the bonds had accepted the offer so far, in addition to 38.76 per cent committed to sell before the offer was launched.

Safilo also said that so far Hal had not bought a single bond.

"Under these circumstances, the recapitalisation plan might never take place and the group would again be facing a situation of particularly critical borrowings and would most probably find itself on December 31 unable to meet its commitments to its banks," it said.

At the end of September, the company had debt totalling 586.3 million euros.

The price of shares in Safilo here fell by 9.41 percent to 0.51 euros.

Under the recapitalisation, Hal would own 37.23-49.99 percent of Safilo.

The Tabacchi family family which controls the company with 39.9 percent would end up with about 10 percent.

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