PARIS — The troubled fashion house Cerruti has a new owner, designer and chief executive.
Private equity firm MatlinPatterson, a $3.8 billion fund with offices in New York, London and Hong Kong, said Tuesday it had purchased Cerruti from bankrupt Italian conglomerate Fin.part and immediately planned to revitalize the brand under the artistic direction of Nicolas Andreas Taralis.
Financial terms were not disclosed, and a spokesman said it was too early to define details of the fashion relaunch.
The new chief executive officer is Philippe Cleach, a lawyer who has worked at Cerruti for more than 20 years. In a statement, Cleach said he hopes to return prestige to a label known worldwide.
The purchase of Cerruti is the first fashion-related investment for MatlinPatterson, recently in the news for buying troubled Brazilian airline Varig.
A year ago, the Italian men’s wear firm Manifattura Paoloni said it had signed a contract to buy 82 percent of Cerruti 1881 SAS for 112 million euros, or $136.4 million.
However, it appears the liquidation court overseeing the deal annulled the offer following the arrest of Michele Paoloni. The Italian industrialist, according to Italian press reports, was charged with price fixing of shares of Schiapparelli, an Italian cosmetics company.
Paoloni could not be reached for comment Tuesday and his firm’s offices are closed for summer holiday.
Although the charge was unrelated to Paoloni’s bid to acquire Cerruti, a spokeswoman at the Milan branch of Filtea, a textile union, said the union, along with the Province of Milan, asked liquidators to invalidate Paoloni’s offer and reopen the bidding. At that point, MatlinPatterson, which is said to have bid on Cerruti during the first round, resubmitted its offer.
It is unclear if the MatlinPatterson deal includes Hitman, the historic Italian production arm of Cerruti. Founded by Nino Cerruti, Hitman is reportedly also in liquidation.
Defunct Fin.part, founded in 1996 by Gianluigi Facchini, bought a 51 percent stake in Cerruti from the founding designer in 2000 for $70 million as part of an acquisition spree that included Frette, Maska and Moncler. Wracked with financial woes, Fin.part succumbed to bankruptcy last October.
The upstart luxury group had a rocky time with Cerruti and churned through designers David Cardona, Roberto Menichetti and Istvan Francer. Emblematic of the company’s disarray, the Cerruti booth at the recent Pitti Uomo men’s wear trade fair in Florence was open for business, but didn’t have a stitch of clothing on display.
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Canadian-born Taralis, who is based in Paris, could not be reached for comment. A graduate of Parsons School of Design and the University of Vienna, he honed his skills by working for three years with Hedi Slimane at Dior Homme.
He launched his signature collection in Paris in 2004, mixing androgynous tailoring with elements of punk rock and army uniforms. His fall 2006 collection took a more sophisticated turn, featuring worn-leather patchwork spencers, feminine blouses fluttering open at the back and sweeping tweed capes.