LVMH to sell Donna Karan in $650-mn deal

For only the second time in its almost 30-year history, Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH), the largest luxury conglomerate in the world, is selling a fashion brand.

On Monday, the French company said that it had agreed to sell Donna Karan International to G-III Apparel Group, the American manufacturing and licensing company that owns Andrew Marc, Vilebrequin and Bass and holds the licens- es for Ivanka Trump, Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, among others.

It said that the transaction had an enterprise value of $650 million.

The last fashion brand that LVMH sold was Christian Lacroix in 2005.

In a statement, Antonio Belloni, LVMH group Managing Director, said that G-III “has the expertise and capabilities to broaden the brand’s distribution and take it to its next level of success.” Belloni said that the French company had not been looking to sell Donna Karan until it was contacted by G-III.

The sale will most likely be regarded as a rare admission of failure on the part of LVMH, which is known for supporting its brands, from Céline to Givenchy, until they find that alchemy of designer and chief executive that transforms a fashion line into a runaway success.

Plans for the sale come just over a year after Donna Karan herself retired from the house that bears her name and LVMH announced a new strategy for the company. It suspended the highend line, Donna Karan, to focus on the brand’s lowerpriced contemporary collection, DKNY, which has been designed by Maxwell Osborne and Dao-Yi Chow, the duo behind the hip streetwear line Public School, since April 2015.

At the time of the designers’ appointment, Pierre-Yves Roussel, the chairman and chief executive of LVMH Fashion Group, said that DKNY was responsible for 80 per cent of Donna Karan International sales and with the new team, “we think it can be huge.” Apparently, not under LVMH.

The last fashion brand that LVMH sold was Christian Lacroix in 2005