
"Roberto Cavalli is not for sale" says owner as it moves to quash speculation
See catwalk
Owner DAMAC Group, said it was 'addressing recent speculation in the press about Roberto Cavalli ' and wanted to give a 'clear assurance about the future of the business'.
It added: 'Since acquiring the Roberto Cavalli business in 2019, DAMAC have invested significantly in the growth and success of the company. Roberto Cavalli is not for sale. As before, we remain interested in strategic partners who can add value to the business.'
The statement came after the company last month said it was assessing the 'strategic partnerships' referred to in today's statement as part of its growth options as Italian media began to speculate about a potential sale.
Cavalli has faced the same challenges that have hit the rest of the luxury sector in recent years but has been busy this year opening new boutiques and launching regular collections as well as collaborations. This year alone those new stores have included Ibiza, Dubai Mall and Los Angeles, while collabs have included SKIMS and LeSportsac.
Launched in 1970, the label's founder died a little over a year ago. The company had been bought just before the pandemic by DAMAC, which is a multi-billion-dollar business conglomerate founded and headquarted in the UAE by Hussain Sajwani. The parent company also invests in luxury real estate, capital markets, hotels/resorts, manufacturing, catering, and data centres.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


France 24
a day ago
- France 24
Swiss gold refining sector stung by US tariffs
The price of gold on the US futures market hit a record high Friday after US customs authorities clarified that gold bars weighing either one kilogram or 100 ounces (2.8 kilograms) should be classified as subject to so-called reciprocal tariffs. The July 31 letter was first reported late Thursday by the Financial Times. But a White House official told AFP that President Donald Trump's administration plans to "issue an executive order in the near future clarifying misinformation about the tariffing of gold bars and other specialty products". It was not immediately clear if this meant the products would therefore be exempt from Trump's "reciprocal" levies, imposed to address what Washington deems as unfair trade deficits. One-kilo gold bars are the most traded type of bullion on Comex -- the world's biggest futures market -- and Switzerland is a major supplier of the bars on the physical market. Expectations had been widespread that gold bars would be classified under a different customs code that excludes them from Trump's countrywide tariffs. Higher "reciprocal" rates took effect Thursday on dozens of economies. Swiss officials travelled to Washington this week to seek a deal similar to the European Union, whose products now face a 15-percent rate. But they came back empty handed. The customs update increased pressure on the Swiss government as gold trading weighs heavily on its trade balance. John Plassard, head of investment strategy at Cite Gestion, expects some of the gold refining business would likely flow to other industry centres such as Antwerp. Gold bars produced in the Belgian city Antwerp face a 15-percent US tariff applied to EU goods. Refining powerhouse Switzerland is home to four of the world's largest gold refineries, the largest being Valcambi in Balerna, in the Italian-speaking part of the country. They import unrefined gold coming from mines, recycled jewellery or lower-purity bars to be recast into high-quality bars, making Switzerland a hub for the global gold trade. These bars are then reintroduced to the market for jewellery, watchmaking, industry and tech products, as well as the banking sector and for use as central bank reserves. Over a third of global refining According to a Swiss Federal Customs Administration report, the country imported 2,372 tonnes of gold in 2023 and re-exported 1,564 tonnes. The value of these exports approached 88 billion Swiss francs ($109 billion at current rates), with the main buyers being China at 25.1 billion francs and India at 13.1 billion francs. Including other precious metals like silver and palladium, the sector accounts for 1,500 direct jobs in the country and 1,000 indirect jobs, according to the Swiss association of manufacturers and traders of precious metals. In 2023, Switzerland accounted for 34 percent of the total refined gold worldwide, according to the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO). Export surge to the US Swiss gold exports to the United States soared to 11 billion Swiss francs last year, nearly doubling from 6.1 billion in 2023. They then skyrocketed in the first half of 2025, reaching 39.2 billion francs, compared to nearly 1.7 billion in the first half of 2024, according to data Swiss customs provided to AFP. Nearly all of the gold -- 37.6 billion francs' worth -- was exported in the first quarter of 2025. Shipments then plummeted sharply to roughly 1.6 billion francs in the second quarter. Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter on Thursday strongly disagreed with how Trump assessed the US trade deficit with Switzerland, and thus the high tariff imposed. She said the rise in gold exports in 2024 had led to the increase in the deficit. Swiss newspaper Le Temps noted Tuesday that to calculate customs duties on Switzerland "the White House seems to have relied exclusively on 2024 data," which was "an atypical year". Swiss gold exports to the United States skyrocketed in November, when Trump won the presidential election, triggering a surge in "safe haven" investments such as gold, it said.


Euronews
3 days ago
- Euronews
Haunted by Merkel: Trump still grappling with Europe's lost leader
When US President Donald Trump issued a warning on Tuesday about the trade deal he agreed with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Scotland on 27 July, it was another German – former Chancellor Angela Merkel - who appeared to be on his mind. Despite being out of power for almost four years, the former German leader's complex relationship with Donald Trump - marked at times by respect and dislike – appears to continue to exert influence over the US president. When quizzed on CNBC's 'Squawk Box' via phone Trump said of the trade deal that a pledge for the EU to invest $600 billion (€550 billion) in the US by the end of his second term will need to be honoured by the EU, or 35% blanket tariffs will be applied to the bloc. Before issuing that warning however the US president expounded in general on the benefits of his trade policy. Referring to the EU, Trump appeared to cast his mind back to a conversation with Merkel about the auto sector. 'I said to... let me just say a prime minister, a very nice prime minister, a couple [sic] of years ago, I said: 'How many [US] cars are you taking a year? Let me guess, is it one or two?'' 'She said: 'No, no, no, we don't take any of your cars,' he said, before adding: 'I said: 'That's not right, that's not a nice thing Angela.'' 'And now they take all our cars, all our trucks, 100%, in addition the EU is going to pay us $600 billion dollars,' Trump said. Addressing the 55th Munich Security Conference in February 2019, Merkel rejected Trump's claims that German cars represented a security threat to the US. Merkel told the conference that German auto giant BMW's largest plant is in South Carolina, rather than its home in Bavaria in southern Germany. 'If these cars, which are no less a threat than those built in Bavaria, are suddenly a national security threat to the US, then that's a shock to us,' she said. Last year, Merkel told Italian daily Corriere della Sera in an interview that 'Donald Trump was obsessed by the fact that, in his view, there were too many German cars in New York.' 'He had always said that, if he were to become president, he would have imposed such high tariffs that they [German cars] would have disappeared from the streets of Manhattan,' Merkel told the newspaper in an interview she gave ahead of the publication of her memoir. A see-sawing relationship In August 2015, before his first election, Trump complimented Merkel in an interview with Time magazine, saying "she's fantastic … highly respected'. But he soon changed his mind. By the time the former chancellor visited the White House in 2017 during Trump's first term, he attempted to embarrass her by refusing to shake her hand before the cameras, and then grilled her for allowing around one million refugees – mainly from Syria and Iraq – into Germany. When her memoir, Freedom, was published last year, Merkel said she misread Trump during that first meeting. 'Instead of stoically bearing it, I whispered to him that we should shake hands again,' Merkel wrote, adding: 'As soon as the words left my mouth, I shook my head at myself. How could I forget that Trump knew precisely what he was doing … He wanted to give people something to talk about with his behaviour, while I had acted as though I were having a conversation with someone completely normal.' 'It seemed that his main aim was to make the person he was talking to feel guilty… At the same time I had the impression… that he also wanted the person he was talking with to like him,' Merkel wrote of Trump's mercurial character. Merkel publicly registered regret when Trump did not concede defeat in November 2020's US election, saying: "A basic rule of democracy is: After elections, there are winners and losers. Both have to play their roles with decency and a sense of responsibility, so that democracy itself remains the winner." When German Chancellor Friedrich Merz visited The White House earlier this year, much preparation went into ensuring that the meeting with Donald Trump would not evolve into an on-air fiasco similar to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's earlier Oval Office confrontation. In the end Merz had nothing to worry about. Trump's only criticism was reserved for Angela Merkel, whom he slammed for building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and once again for opening up her country to refugees, telling her successor: 'I told her it shouldn't have happened.'


Fashion Network
3 days ago
- Fashion Network
Fendi opens its first store in Cancun
Fendi opened its first boutique in Cancun on July 31, adding a new key destination as it expands in the Mexican market. Located in the La Isla complex, the store measures more than 179 square metres and was designed to integrate the aesthetic legacy of the Italian fashion house with references to the Mexican Caribbean. The store's façade is highlighted by three-dimensional handmade tile cladding in the shape of palm leaves, a choice that creates a fusion between European savoir-faire and elements of local identity. Inside, the boutique offers an immersive experience: Italian marble, warm wood, and textures that hark back to the brand's origins in Rome are combined with a contemporary layout. The space is conceptualised to connect itself with the environment without losing the visual codes that distinguish Fendi. The store houses leather goods, footwear and a selection of ready-to-wear for women and men, curated especially for the season. The setting reinforces this vision with a visual proposal adapted to the destination, without renouncing the sophistication that characterises the historic brand. In addition to the new location in Cancun, Fendi operates in Mexico through its flagship store in Artz Pedregal and four shop-in-shops in El Palacio de Hierro: two in Mexico City (Polanco and Santa Fe), one more in Monterrey, and another in Guadalajara. The country is also home to the only Fendi Casa boutique in Latin America.