Authentic Brands Group is in exclusive negotiations to purchase the Missoni brand, according to sources. If things go according to plan, a deal is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

Authentic, the New York-based owner of Reebok, Champion and other high-profile brands, declined to comment.

The Missoni family owns 58.8 percent of the shares of the company while an investor, Fondo Strategico Italiano, bought a 41.2 percent stake in 2018. The line is designed by Alberto Caliri. Angela Missoni, daughter of the late founders Tai and Rosita, is the president of the company while her brother Luca is in charge of special events and exhibitions.

The Missoni company, led by chief executive officer Livio Proli, had no comment Tuesday on the sale speculation.

However, according to sources, Missoni fits well into the Authentic playbook, which is to purchase brands with global potential and the ability to be licensed into an array of products.

“It fits into their business model,” one source said. “It’s global and has multiple categories.”

Although WHP Global, a smaller competitor to Authentic in the brand management space, was also interested in Missoni, its interest has waned. Instead, it is said to be pursuing a purchase of Lands’ End, which said earlier this year that it was exploring strategic alternatives. WHP did not respond to requests for comment on Lands’ End or Missoni.

Missoni is higher priced than many of the brands in the Authentic portfolio, but the company has recently been exploring a deeper move into the luxury space. It has a joint venture with Saks Global in a business called the Authentic Luxury Group, which includes a focus on its Barneys New York, Judith Leiber Couture, Hervé Legér and Vince brands.

Most recently, Authentic was in active negotiations to buy Marc Jacobs from LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. But those negotiations ended recently and sources said LVMH is not currently seeking to sell the brand. “It’s on hold for now,” the source said. “It could be for a year, two years, or forever. No one knows.”

The source added that Authentic’s founder and chief executive officer, Jamie Salter, had grown quite fond of Marc Jacobs, the designer, who still has an interest in the company. Apparently Jacobs still wants to hold runway shows and develop his high-end collection and although Authentic had apparently been willing to allow that for a limited amount of time, it wasn’t going to be forever, so the deal didn’t happen.

“It had nothing to do with money,” the source said. “Authentic wasn’t asking for a discount but Marc still wanted his fashion shows and his Met Gala looks, which are very important to him and his brand. Nobody should buy Marc Jacobs without Marc Jacobs. They wanted a happy Marc and that wasn’t going to happen, so the talks ended.”

Like many deals, some may look good on paper, but just like pre-arranged marriages, they may be difficult to be accepted by the parties — and eventually fall through. One extenuating circumstance for brands such as Missoni and Etro, which has also been rumored to be for sale for years, is that the founding families are still invested in those companies and can put the brakes on any sale.

Yvonne Pengue, founder and director of London-based executive search firm Spot on Minds, said that “behind family-owned companies, there is this real, consistent effort to build the business long-term, rather than seeking a short-term win, uplift in sales, or retail expansion. It’s much more careful. On the other hand, innovation sometimes could be a little bit slower in order to preserve the brand’s founding legacy.” 

Pengue believe “there could be a fear that the outside buyer will prioritize profit over purpose or dilute the brand’s essence. The most successful acquisitions are the ones where the buyer commits to heritage and maintaining the values, the identity and the codes of the brand, while evolving them and growing the brand. It takes a lot of courage to sell a company that bears your name and you want it to be in a safe pair of hands. Because with the families, it’s about emotions, more than pragmatism. As we say, emotion is often the biggest shareholder — the brand carries your name, and so it’s about your identity and how it will be brought to future generations.”

She does not think one entity in particular, whether a private equity fund or a large fashion conglomerate, is more fit than another for this kind of deal. “The winners are those that have a long-term vision, and the right approach in relating to the families,” said Pengue.

Massimiliano Giornetti, creative director of Drumhor and director of fashion school Polimoda, is knowledgeable about the dynamics of a family company as in 2016 he left his role as creative director of Salvatore Ferragamo — famously passed on from the namesake founder to a large number of heirs — after first joining the brand in 2000.

“A brand’s authenticity stems from the intuition of one or more family members that throughout their lives work to preserve the values of that brand. Typical Italian family companies are passed on from generation to generation, and these are often niche, artisanal companies,” said Giornetti. “It is key to preserve that position, they cannot be stretched so much that they lose their values, and the objective should be to grow in a fluid and organic way.”

For this reason, the family becomes “protective of the brand to guarantee its future aligned with its essence,” and a key negotiator in any sale discussion. “Family companies are like fragile micro-organisms, they are made by pieces that fall into place as in a puzzle, and when one piece is missing, problems can arise, as we’ve seen, also at the time of generational handovers,” continued the designer.

He argued that large American managerial groups may “have different missions,” and may be distant from this kind of world, which leads to lengthy discussions to seal a deal — or not.  The Ferragamo company itself has been said to be for sale for years, although the family has repeatedly denied this. The brand is now in the midst of a turnaround, designed by Maximilian Davis, and awaiting the arrival of a new CEO following the exit of Marco Gobbetti in March.

In the case of Missoni, Andrea Paolo Mainardi, cofounder and CEO of Strategic Advisors Group, suggested that the family and Fondo Strategico Italiano “are willing to divest their full stakes, which would give [Authentic] complete control of the brand.”

In his opinion, Missoni is attractive because, “despite a slight dip” in sales to 120 million euros in 2024, Missoni has demonstrated a dramatic turnaround in profitability under CEO Proli. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization skyrocketed to 16.6 million euros from 2.1 million euros a year earlier. Net income reached 8.9 million euros, a significant recovery from a previous loss. “This financial discipline makes the makes the brand an attractive asset for global expansion under a company like [Authentic].”

Andrea Randone, head of Mid & Small Caps Research at Intermonte, said that regarding deals of companies with family ownership, “Most of the time, the family sells because business is suffering or due to a generational change,” as in the case of Giorgio Armani, following the death of the designer on Sept. 4. “To deal with an individual owner is one thing, another is to deal with a family and their complexities.”

As reported, last December, Rothschild was given a mandate to seek an investor in the Etro company. L Catterton acquired a majority stake in Etro in July 2021. Sources say it is not clear what kind of deal either L Catterton or the Etro family are looking for, whether a full exit or the sale of a stake. Speculation about a disinvestment has been circulating on and off for years. Founder Gerolamo Etro, known as Gimmo, is chairman of the company, which was first established in 1968 as a textile firm. His children Veronica, Kean and Jacopo, who were previously creative directors of the women’s, men’s and home collections, respectively, left their roles and were succeeded by Marco De Vincenzo in 2022.

In its recent report, “European Retailing Primer,” RBC Capital Markets analysts said the apparel sector is “mature,” but still offers “high margins at full price.” In the report, the analysts “believe that M&A has been an increasing theme in the sector since the pandemic, with a polarization in performance resulting in the stronger players in the space acquiring struggling businesses at good prices.”

According to Deloitte’s Fashion & Luxury Private Equity and Investors Survey 2025, 90 percent of investors will continue to invest in the fashion and luxury sector, despite the impact of the U.S. tariffs. M&A operations have slowed down, with 333 deals registered in 2024 globally, 25 less compared with 2023. The first half of 2025 confirmed the slowdown with 162 deals, a 14 percent decrease compared with the same period last year.

The areas of most interest are cosmetics and perfumes (25 percent), followed by apparel and accessories production (24 percent).