With two acquisitions, the Florence group enters the footwear segment. Lorenza Calzaturificio in Filetto (Chieti) and Novarese in Corridonia (Macerata) join the luxury cluster. And good things come in threes, as Florence also announced its entrance in the intermediary manufacturing segment with the acquisition of Officina Ciemmeci in Ponte a Egola (Pisa), an entity specialized in the treatment of leather and textiles. There are now 17 companies part of Florence’s project.
The group is controlled by VAM Investments (65%), and Italian investment fund (through the Fondo Italiano Consolidamento e Crescita – FICC) and by Italmobiliare. The remaining 35% is owned by the companies’ founding families.
Florence enters the footwear segment
Vincenzo Cicolini and Pina Caramanico founded Lorenza Calzaturificio in 1996. The companies is specialized in the production of informal luxury shoes, and closed 2021 with 23 million euro in revenue, with an overall production capacity of 230,000 pairs per year. The company has a 3,000 square meters production site where 70 employees work. Novarese, on the other hand, was created by the Gismondi family in 1946.
The main production site is located in Corridonia, where the 5 production lines developed on 6,000 square meters work according to Lean Organization principles: one line is entirely dedicated to prototypes. Each line can make about 350 pairs of shoes each day. Novarese is also an expert in the field of treating and utilizing exotic leather. The second production site the company has is the footwear plant Bison, in Treia. Overall, 220 people are employed by the entity.
The group’s strategy
This acquisition package also includes Officina Ciemmeci (in photo), which was opened in 2015 by the same founders of Ciemmeci Fashion (already a part of the Florence group since November 2020). The company is led by Vinicio Capezzuoli, with Marcello Boschi as CEO. Officina Ciemmeci closed 2021 with a revenue of 5 million euro. It employs 40 people and deals with the washing, coloring and manual treatment of textiles and leather. With these additions, the Florence group, of which Francesco Trapani is chairman and Attila Kiss is CEO, can count on more than 350 million euro in revenue for the year and over 1,000 employees located in 12 regions. The group collaborates with more than 50 international brands.
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