Shares in shoemaker soar on death of matriarch Wanda Ferragamo
The death of Salvatore Ferragamo’s widow has sent shares soaring in his eponymous company amid speculation her successors may sell their stake in the business.
Shares closed up over seven per cent in the late afternoon today.
The company’s value peaked in 2015, and has been on a downwards trajectory since May last year.
Wanda Ferragamo, the Florentine shoemaker’s matriarch, died aged 96 on Friday.
She was widowed 58 years ago, taking over her husband’s shoemaking business and growing it into an international brand.
The company was listed on the Milan exchange in 2011, but Wanda Ferragamo kept 19.5 per cent of the voting rights, while a further 15 per cent needs to be re-allocated after her daughter Fulvia died earlier this year.
Flavio Cereda, a Jeffries analyst, said: “We believe she ranks alongside the greatest female entrepreneurs in Italian fashion, alongside the Fendi and Fontana sisters, Mariuccia Mandelli, more recently Miuccia Prada, and of course, the original businesswoman, Luisa Spagnoli.”
He added: “Italian bureaucracy sets the timing, but clearly there will be a greater concentration of control in the hands of fewer members in the family, some of whom have been sellers in the recent past.
“Whilst we still see M&A as a medium-term option, the shareholder changes will focus minds on possible developments here.”
Jeffries said it expects the family to give the company’s new chief executive Micaela LeDivelec Lemmi enough time to turn the business around.
Lemmi, who was appointed in July, faces “a big ask, but not entirely impossible” if she is to get Salvatore Ferragamo back on the right path, Cereda said.
Salvatore Ferragamo was founded in 1920s Florence, making and selling ladies footwear.
The company started expanding beyond Italy after the Second World War.