Armani Stake Sale: Why LVMH and Rivals Will Pay Near €5bn
LVMH, L'Oréal and EssilorLuxottica are discussing splitting the first 15% of Giorgio Armani three ways, which breaks the will's route to a single controlling buyer and points the endgame toward a public listing. At a 7% EBITDA margin on €2.19 billion of shrinking revenue, the family's €10 billion valuation works out to 65 times EBITDA. The desk expects the stake to price near €5 billion instead.
LVMH, L'Oréal and EssilorLuxottica are discussing a three-way split of the 15% stake in Giorgio Armani up for sale. The structure would give each a seat without control. Chief executive Giuseppe Marsocci confirmed on Sunday that "it is not written in stone that it has to be one investor." A three-way structure would divide the investment and block the mechanism in Armani's will designed to give one buyer control of the house. With no single investor accumulating a path to a majority, the likeliest endgame becomes a public listing for the larger stake still to come, and the split caps what any of the three suitors need to pay now.
Armani's will, written before his death in September 2025, set a specific path to a sale. The first 15% must go within 12 to 18 months of his death, a window that closes around March 2027. The same buyer then has three to five years to take a further 30% to 54.9%, or the foundation that controls the house lists it instead. Armani named LVMH, L'Oréal and EssilorLuxottica as preferred buyers and left room for others of "equal standing." A three-way split of the first tranche fits the letter of the will. It removes the thing the structure was built around: one buyer on a path to control.
Each of the three names has its own reason to avoid that path. L'Oréal already holds the Armani beauty licence through 2050, and people familiar with its thinking told the FT that protecting that contract is its priority; it invests in fashion brands such as Jacquemus but does not run them. EssilorLuxottica's eyewear licence runs to 2038 and gives it comparable protection without ownership. LVMH has expressed interest but is a less obvious fit: Armani sells at lower price points than most LVMH houses and leans more heavily on ready-to-wear fashion than on the accessories and leather goods that carry the highest margins elsewhere in the LVMH portfolio. A person close to the talks told the Financial Times: "No one wants to jump on it but no one wants to let it pass. This way everyone gets to be around the table."
The financials show why investors are hesitant. Armani's revenue fell 2.8% to €2.19 billion in 2025, after a 5% decline the year before. EBITDA rose to €153 million, a 7% margin, helped by cost cuts and the Armani Privé haute couture line while sales kept falling. People close to the Armani family have floated a valuation near €10 billion, which works out to roughly 65 times EBITDA. Potential investors put the value at €3 billion to €7 billion, or 20 to 46 times EBITDA. A luxury house does not typically clear a gap that wide between what a seller wants and what a buyer will pay without the number moving toward the buyer, and a 7% margin sitting on €2.19 billion of shrinking revenue is a specific, checkable reason why.
At €10 billion, a buyer pays 65 times a profit line that grew through cost cuts while sales fell. Justifying that would take EBITDA roughly three times today's level, which means both a return to growth and a margin closer to the industry's leaders. At €5 billion, roughly the middle of the range under discussion, the multiple falls to about 33 times EBITDA, still a premium price for a brand without a growth story, but one a licensing partner protecting existing contracts could justify paying to keep a seat on the board.
Scarcity is the main argument for a higher price. Armani is one of the last major fashion houses still independent of the handful of conglomerates that dominate the industry, its board has been rebuilt with outside talent including former Gucci chief executive Marco Bizzarri, and the appointment of Dario Vitale, formerly of Versace, as creative director signals an effort to modernize the accessories business, which management is treating as a genuine growth opportunity. A founder-free Italian house of this scale rarely comes up for sale, and buyers have historically paid up for exactly that kind of rarity.
Scarcity sells a brand name, and it explains why LVMH, L'Oréal and EssilorLuxottica are all still at the table. It says less about who captures the value inside this business. L'Oréal and EssilorLuxottica already hold licences that let them collect fragrance, cosmetics and eyewear royalties without owning a share of the fashion operation that carries the lower margins and the currency and inventory risk. Buying equity in the parent company at a rich multiple means paying again for economics the licensees already have, on top of a business earning €153 million that a €10 billion price treats as worth far more.
A three-way split lets each investor take a position small enough to matter without being large enough to define the price, and it defers the harder decision, control of the next 30% to 54.9% tranche or a public listing, to a later date when Armani's growth story, particularly in accessories, will either have materialized or not. Formal talks are expected to begin in the coming weeks, later than the June timeline originally discussed.
The desk expects a two- or three-way sale of the initial 15% to be signed before the March 2027 deadline in Armani's will, at an equity valuation near €5 billion, putting the stake itself at roughly €750 million. That price reflects what a licensing partner pays to keep influence over a brand whose best economics it already owns, well short of what a strategic buyer chasing control would have to offer. The valuation disclosed when talks conclude will test this view: a figure near €5 billion confirms this reading, while anything approaching the family's €10 billion would mean one of the three suitors sees revenue growth in Armani that the 2025 numbers do not yet show. Either way, the will's own clock points past this first sale toward a public listing for the larger stake still to come.