Is Hogan and Tod's a merged company?
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softgrey
flaunt the imperfection
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i think it's the other way around...i think it started with jp tods shoes...and then hogan spun off...eventually going to bags...
this is how i remember it anyway...
maybe someone else knows for sure...
good question
this is how i remember it anyway...
maybe someone else knows for sure...
good question
softgrey said:i think it's the other way around...i think it started with jp tods shoes...and then hogan spun off...eventually going to bags...
this is how i remember it anyway...
maybe someone else knows for sure...
good question
Thank you for the input, so what you are saying is that Hogan bought JP Tod Shoes and then introduced the Tod's/Hogan handbag line(s)?
This was an interesting article in the economist on Tod's
Putting the boot in
May 18th 2006
From The Economist print edition
Diego Della Valle has shown that there is still life in the Italian shoe industry
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1]TO BE a real Italian tycoon you need a huge range of business and financial interests—and a football club at the apex of your empire. Silvio Berlusconi, until recently Italy's prime minister, has his media and insurance businesses—and owns [SIZE=-1]AC[/SIZE] Milan. The Agnellis are synonymous with Fiat and Juventus football club. As for Diego Della Valle—well, he is chairman of Tod's, Italy's largest high-quality shoe business, sits on the board of Ferrari and [SIZE=-1]LVMH[/SIZE] and is president of Fiorentina football club.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1]In normal times, football would be regarded as a harmless source of prestige and fun. But now some of Italy's biggest clubs, in particular Juventus, are enmeshed in an alleged match-fixing scandal. And even Mr Della Valle—who has often taken a rather holier-than-thou attitude in his business dealings—finds himself under investigation by magistrates over the football scandal.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1]Mr Della Valle insists that he will be vindicated. Indeed in an interview with this newspaper, shortly before the scandal broke, he said that he hoped to make Fiorentina an example of honesty and straight-dealing in football, adding: “But this is a very complex business. I have encountered a lot of aggression and found that the rules are set by a few.”[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1]Fortunately, Mr Della Valle is well accustomed to controversy and rows. In the run-up to the recent Italian election, he feuded publicly with Mr Berlusconi who suggested that Mr Della Valle was a leftist who had “gone out of his mind”. A claque of Berlusconi supporters prevented Mr Della Valle speaking at a meeting of the Italian employers' association, but he was less concerned by that than the campaign that members of Mr Berlusconi's party launched to boycott shoes made by Tod's Group. “The boycott was brutal and undemocratic. It worried us and we monitored sales closely in March and April,” admits Mr Della Valle. In the event, Italian sales rose strongly in that period. [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1]Damaging Tod's would have been a peculiarly self-defeating strategy for Italy's ruling party. For at a time when Italy's traditional industries, like clothing and footwear, are reeling in the face of global competition, Tod's is a rare example of an Italian footwear company that is going from strength to strength. Its revenues have increased to €503m ($624m) last year from €319m in 2001, and pre-tax profit improved from €60m to over €90m.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1] The secret of the firm's success—at a time when so many of its neighbours are going under—lies in two decisions. It has gone determinedly for the luxury end of the market, and it has invested heavily in its own brand. The average price of the roughly 2m shoes the firm produces every year is around €250 a pair.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1]The company, founded by Mr Della Valle's grandfather, has always made high-quality, hand-made footwear. But for many years it produced for the private-label market, making shoes that were sold in smart stores like Saks Fifth Avenue in New York and Harrods in London, under the stores' own names. The Della Valle family's crucial decision, made a quarter of a century ago, was to launch its own brand.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1]“Leaving the security of those large prestigious customers for the uncertainty of building our own market was very hard,” remembers Mr Della Valle. Now 52, at that time he had been in the firm for about five years and had worked on the shopfloor, learning every job that went into the making of luxury shoes. That apprenticeship included helping to launch the brand. “We gave a lot of attention to choosing the name. It had to be easy to say, and to be spoken as read in all languages,” recalls Mr Della Valle. Now, after many years of deliberation, Tod's has launched a limited range of clothing to add to its shoes and leather goods.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1]A characteristic of firms in the Marches district of central Italy, where Tod's is based, is that they look outwards and explore foreign markets, says Vittorio Merloni, the chairman of Indesit, which is Europe's second largest maker of white goods and the region's biggest manufacturing firm. Exports provide just over half of Tod's revenues. The firm has 14 directly operated shops in America and the importance it attaches to that market was highlighted last autumn, when it tripled the size of its most prestigious store, on New York's Madison Avenue. It now plans to increase its presence in America—Boston, Dallas and San Francisco are candidates for stores. [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]China, land of opportunity[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1]Whereas many companies in Italy's clothing and footwear industry tremble in the face of Chinese competition, Mr Della Valle sees the rise of China as an opportunity. “The boom for luxury goods is unending. There are people who never have to worry about whether they can afford something they like. In one part of the world or another there will always be someone with money to spend on luxury,” says Mr Della Valle. He sees China, where Tod's already has several outlets, as a great market. Chinese counterfeits are not a problem, nor is competition from low-cost manufacturing. “Our customers want the highest quality and that can only be found in Italy,” he asserts. [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1]Full marks for confidence—but it is possible that Mr Della Valle is being too sanguine. Marco Boglione, a businessman in Turin whose firm owns the Kappa, Robe di Kappa and Superga footwear and clothing brands, has a different view. “China can produce better quality than we can. We only need to look and touch,” he warns. As for brands, Mr Boglione, who has recently sold the rights to the Kappa and Robe di Kappa brands in the Chinese market, believes that the Chinese will buy brands rather than build them. [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1]So might Tod's one day come under Chinese ownership? The firm's shares were listed on the stockmarket in November 2000, and the Della Valle family still owns 65% of them—so the prospect of an eventual Chinese takeover still looks very distant. But, as the footballing adage goes, if Mr Della Valle takes his eye off the ball, he could yet run into trouble.[/SIZE][/FONT]
Putting the boot in
May 18th 2006
From The Economist print edition
Diego Della Valle has shown that there is still life in the Italian shoe industry
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1]TO BE a real Italian tycoon you need a huge range of business and financial interests—and a football club at the apex of your empire. Silvio Berlusconi, until recently Italy's prime minister, has his media and insurance businesses—and owns [SIZE=-1]AC[/SIZE] Milan. The Agnellis are synonymous with Fiat and Juventus football club. As for Diego Della Valle—well, he is chairman of Tod's, Italy's largest high-quality shoe business, sits on the board of Ferrari and [SIZE=-1]LVMH[/SIZE] and is president of Fiorentina football club.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1]In normal times, football would be regarded as a harmless source of prestige and fun. But now some of Italy's biggest clubs, in particular Juventus, are enmeshed in an alleged match-fixing scandal. And even Mr Della Valle—who has often taken a rather holier-than-thou attitude in his business dealings—finds himself under investigation by magistrates over the football scandal.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1]Mr Della Valle insists that he will be vindicated. Indeed in an interview with this newspaper, shortly before the scandal broke, he said that he hoped to make Fiorentina an example of honesty and straight-dealing in football, adding: “But this is a very complex business. I have encountered a lot of aggression and found that the rules are set by a few.”[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1]Fortunately, Mr Della Valle is well accustomed to controversy and rows. In the run-up to the recent Italian election, he feuded publicly with Mr Berlusconi who suggested that Mr Della Valle was a leftist who had “gone out of his mind”. A claque of Berlusconi supporters prevented Mr Della Valle speaking at a meeting of the Italian employers' association, but he was less concerned by that than the campaign that members of Mr Berlusconi's party launched to boycott shoes made by Tod's Group. “The boycott was brutal and undemocratic. It worried us and we monitored sales closely in March and April,” admits Mr Della Valle. In the event, Italian sales rose strongly in that period. [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1]Damaging Tod's would have been a peculiarly self-defeating strategy for Italy's ruling party. For at a time when Italy's traditional industries, like clothing and footwear, are reeling in the face of global competition, Tod's is a rare example of an Italian footwear company that is going from strength to strength. Its revenues have increased to €503m ($624m) last year from €319m in 2001, and pre-tax profit improved from €60m to over €90m.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1] The secret of the firm's success—at a time when so many of its neighbours are going under—lies in two decisions. It has gone determinedly for the luxury end of the market, and it has invested heavily in its own brand. The average price of the roughly 2m shoes the firm produces every year is around €250 a pair.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1]The company, founded by Mr Della Valle's grandfather, has always made high-quality, hand-made footwear. But for many years it produced for the private-label market, making shoes that were sold in smart stores like Saks Fifth Avenue in New York and Harrods in London, under the stores' own names. The Della Valle family's crucial decision, made a quarter of a century ago, was to launch its own brand.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1]“Leaving the security of those large prestigious customers for the uncertainty of building our own market was very hard,” remembers Mr Della Valle. Now 52, at that time he had been in the firm for about five years and had worked on the shopfloor, learning every job that went into the making of luxury shoes. That apprenticeship included helping to launch the brand. “We gave a lot of attention to choosing the name. It had to be easy to say, and to be spoken as read in all languages,” recalls Mr Della Valle. Now, after many years of deliberation, Tod's has launched a limited range of clothing to add to its shoes and leather goods.[/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1]A characteristic of firms in the Marches district of central Italy, where Tod's is based, is that they look outwards and explore foreign markets, says Vittorio Merloni, the chairman of Indesit, which is Europe's second largest maker of white goods and the region's biggest manufacturing firm. Exports provide just over half of Tod's revenues. The firm has 14 directly operated shops in America and the importance it attaches to that market was highlighted last autumn, when it tripled the size of its most prestigious store, on New York's Madison Avenue. It now plans to increase its presence in America—Boston, Dallas and San Francisco are candidates for stores. [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, geneva, arial, sans serif]China, land of opportunity[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1]Whereas many companies in Italy's clothing and footwear industry tremble in the face of Chinese competition, Mr Della Valle sees the rise of China as an opportunity. “The boom for luxury goods is unending. There are people who never have to worry about whether they can afford something they like. In one part of the world or another there will always be someone with money to spend on luxury,” says Mr Della Valle. He sees China, where Tod's already has several outlets, as a great market. Chinese counterfeits are not a problem, nor is competition from low-cost manufacturing. “Our customers want the highest quality and that can only be found in Italy,” he asserts. [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1]Full marks for confidence—but it is possible that Mr Della Valle is being too sanguine. Marco Boglione, a businessman in Turin whose firm owns the Kappa, Robe di Kappa and Superga footwear and clothing brands, has a different view. “China can produce better quality than we can. We only need to look and touch,” he warns. As for brands, Mr Boglione, who has recently sold the rights to the Kappa and Robe di Kappa brands in the Chinese market, believes that the Chinese will buy brands rather than build them. [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,geneva,arial,sans serif][SIZE=-1]So might Tod's one day come under Chinese ownership? The firm's shares were listed on the stockmarket in November 2000, and the Della Valle family still owns 65% of them—so the prospect of an eventual Chinese takeover still looks very distant. But, as the footballing adage goes, if Mr Della Valle takes his eye off the ball, he could yet run into trouble.[/SIZE][/FONT]
