MILAN — Italy’s UniCredit bank has signed agreements with the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana, or CNMI, and fashion and textile consortium SMI Sistema Moda Italia to create an alliance aimed at boosting growth and competitive advantage in Italy’s clothing and textile sectors.
The two agreements build on a January 2013 accord with the Centro di Firenze per la Moda Italiana, which controls Pitti Immagine, to strengthen “Made in Italy” — or quality fashion products entirely manufactured in Italy.
In the first 18 months of the Centro di Firenze program, 150 million euros, or $205 million at current exchange, in loans were issued to 200 companies, 80 strategic projects launched and 50 scouting operations done, said Gabriele Piccini, country chairman of Italy for UniCredit.
Related Articles
The trio of accords aim to facilitate financing and commercial activity throughout the Italian clothing and textiles sector as well as strengthen collaboration between Florence and Milan to face down foreign competition, especially from London and Paris.
You May Also Like
“We believe in the future of the sector and Italian fashion,” UniCredit chief executive officer Federico Ghizzoni said at a presentation here. “This is an agreement that was made to help 50,000 businesses grow.”
The new alliance does not specify a monetary ceiling or target for new financing or investment, but does outline strategic, complementary areas in which UniCredit will help the Italian fashion sector become more robust, as well as how it will ease credit throughout strategic areas of Italy’s highly decentralized fashion supply chain.
In a major point of the agreement with SMI, UniCredit will offer factoring to all companies, no matter how small, that supply solid Italian fashion brands at a rate that is related to the credit risk of the company at the top of the supply chain. Previously, individual suppliers had to face banks alone.
Piccini told WWD that the practice has so far been used mainly for major retailers, like supermarket chains, but has also been used for Gucci. The difference is that now UniCredit will implement the new factoring system on a structural basis to the fashion sector, including medium-size businesses with revenues in the tens or hundreds of millions of euros, and not just for corporate giants.
UniCredit’s agreement with CNMI is aimed at “putting the Milan brand at the center of the fashion world.” Among other initiatives, the bank will support creative talent, both new and not so new, to get business training, financing or partners, and nurture start-up enterprises spotted by CNMI and its fashion network.
“We need to support the new generation of talent, because our big names have done their time,” said Mario Boselli, chairman of CNMI, who added that Italian brands need help entering emerging markets, like Russia and China.
UniCredit and CNMI are also looking to bring Milan runway shows under the shadow of UniCredit’s new tower headquarters in Piazza Gae Aulenti, but not by September.
Ghizzoni noted that UniCredit is already a leading financial provider to Italy’s fashion sector, reaching 20 percent of the market with 12,000 clients with 4 billion euros, or $5.4 billion, of credit.
Ghizzoni added that Italy’s fashion sector is forecast to grow 3.6 percent this year to 52.6 billion euros, or $70.8 billion — far faster than Italy’s sluggish economy as a whole, which is predicted to grow less than 1 percent. Italian clothing and textile exports are expected to grow by 5.6 percent.