Reports that Italy’s HdP is bailing out of the fashion business and selling off part of its publishing business continue to swirl.
The latest — that the company hired Goldman Sachs to sell off its fashion assets and would sell part of its newspaper business to Telecom Italia — sent its shares up nearly 7 percent on the Milan exchange yesterday, despite denials from HdP.
The Italian news magazine Panorama said HdP was talking to Armani, Prada and Gucci about selling its fashion holdings.
Those assets include the house of Valentino; Fila Sportswear; the menswear licenses for Calvin Klein, Joseph Abboud and Giorgio Armani; a chain of boutiques, and textile mills.
Panorama also said Telecom Italia might buy a stake in HdP’s publishing unit, giving its newspapers and a foothold in the online world.
Telecom Italia denied the report.
So did HdP, adding that it had not hired Goldman Sachs “or any other merchant bank” to sell its fashion assets.
These are not the first reports suggesting that HdP is stepping back from the fashion world and concentrating on publishing.
HdP has also denied reports that it has dropped out of the bidding for Calvin Klein under pressure from Fiat, which is a major shareholder.
And it has denounced reports that Fiat is pushing for a spinoff of its publishing properties. A spokesman said the company was considering “action” against those floating the reports.
“The [spot]light is on HdP now, so people are believing everything they hear. But we need to protect our shareholders,” he said.
While all the reports about HdP have been attributed to anonymous sources, Italy’s financial analysts have been quite open about their desire to see the company concentrate on its media properties rather than fashion.
Shares of European media companies have been rising lately, as the Time Warner-AOL merger sparks hopes of similar deals there.
HdP, or Holding di Partecipazioni, owns a string of Italian newspapers and magazines, as well as the Rizzoli publishing imprint.
Some analysts have also pushed for the company to make Internet investments.
But HdP’s head, Maurizio Romiti, has made it clear he wants to build his fashion empire, despite the decidedly mixed performance of his fashion companies.
Separately, Bloomberg reports that financier Luigi Giribaldi has told Italian regulators he does not own an 11 percent stake in HdP — despite what he said this month.