MILAN — La Perla is being offered a lifeline.
On Friday, Tyche Bank said 500,000 euros were being made available for the financially troubled innerwear company. The amount will allow La Perla to restart operations at its plant in Bologna, Italy.
“Our business model is aimed at supporting companies to overcome a crisis” and La Perla is identified as a typical target, said Francesco De Marco, vice general director of Tyche Bank. “It is our mission to sustain companies that have lost access to traditional credit, but that have the potential to remain on the market.”
De Marco said the bank has the expertise necessary “to evaluate and knowingly support the financial needs” of the companies addressed, and recognized that La Perla is “a business that has value and is a brand known around the world.”
Tyche Bank specializes in insolvency proceedings, impaired and UTP (Unlikely to Pay) loans, among others, and its “Special Situations” division is providing La Perla with the funds. The bank’s main headquarters are in Bologna and Messina, Sicily, and it was formed on July 1 from the merger of Tyche Spa and Banca di Credito Peloritano SpA.
As reported, in May, a Bologna court ruled in favor of putting La Perla’s Italy-based manufacturing arm and subsidiary, La Perla Manufacturing Srl, into judicial administration, which should allow the business to continue to operate and the preservation of jobs.
In February the same court declared La Perla Manufacturing Srl insolvent and appointed a trifecta of commissioners to lead the Italian subsidiary out of financial difficulties. The transaction with Tyche Bank is a first step in meeting the commissioners’ requirements.
The commissioners are also tasked with finding potential investors, following the exit in February of the brand’s owner Tennor, the private equity firm previously known as Sapinda, helmed by German businessman Lars Windhorst.
La Perla Global Management U.K., the British company that owns the La Perla brand and its global assets, in addition to owning exclusive rights to sell La Perla-branded products, has been put into judicial liquidation in the U.K. A similar procedure has separately begun in Italy, given the U.K.-based enterprise’s control over its Italian subsidiaries.
La Perla was founded in 1956 by the corsetry maker Ada Masotti. Her son, Alberto Masotti, headed the business until it was sold to private equity player JH Partners in 2007. Ownership of La Perla later passed to Silvio Scaglia in 2013, who sold it to Sapinda in 2018.
