Brunello Cucinelli urges fellow entrepreneurs to list, and to “dare aim for healthy growth”

Italian fashion entrepreneur Brunello Cucinelli invited the media, investors, financial analysts and business colleagues to a ‘gratitude dinner’ at the former Sala delle Grida in Palazzo Mezzanotte, a telltale venue, having been home to the Milan Stock Exchange since 1932. During the dinner, organised to celebrate the remarkable results recorded by the eponymous label after its stock market listing, Cucinelli evoked the milestones that led to the listing, advising everyone to follow in his footsteps.

“Today, I am here to say thank you. Because we are grateful to analysts, investors, bankers, industrialists, the [Milan] stock exchange, and our country, Italy. I wanted to organise this soiree two years ago, for the 10th anniversary of [our] listing, and to encourage and stimulate many other entrepreneurs to go public, but I had to postpone it because of the prevailing atmosphere at the time,” said Cucinelli in his address to the guests. 
 
“When we decided to list Brunello Cucinelli SpA on the stock market, we did so with a significant objective in mind: Healthy growth. Because we’ve always thought that a business that intends to exist in its land of origin for 100, 200 years, like we do, needs concrete and solid foundations,” continued Cucinelli, who turned 71 a month ago. “We held the first meeting after deciding to list [Brunello Cucinelli] right here in Milan. We met up with 27 between bankers, lawyers, and notaries, all of them somewhat looking down on us country folk. And when they came to Umbria, they were astonished to see that at sunset, at around half past five, we were in the habit of sending our employees home. Since the [fashion] sector was growing by over 20% per year, they told us we needed to grow by at least 25-30%. However, when we set out to draw up the 10 fundamental rules through which a company would last 100 years, we wrote that anyone who wants to turn a profit at all costs will hardly exist for long. If by any chance [a business] grows by 30%, almost always investors will drop out, leaving it high and dry. Instead, I’ve always thought that the right growth rate for our company was around 10%. And this applies to everyone,” said Cucinelli to his entrepreneur colleagues and friends.

“So let’s go back to the concept of healthy growth, not the kind of fast, forced growth the market prefers. We’ve always put this concept into practice, as it is a very significant one. And I encourage you to list [your companies], because a stock market listing is a wonderful experience, one of the finest in my business life, one I strongly recommend. But let me say to everyone: Dare to aim for limited growth,” said Cucinelli, urging his colleagues to take the plunge.
 
Cucinelli, a humanist entrepreneur, advocated a low initial capitalisation value for Brunello Cucinelli SpA, 49% of whose capital was publicly listed, while 51% is still owned by the Cucinelli family. It proved to be a winning strategy: the label’s share price has risen from €7.75 twelve years ago – at the time of the IPO – to about €97 today. The company’s capitalisation has grown from an initial €530 million to over €6.5 billion, and Brunello Cucinelli ranks in the FTSE-MIB index’s top 40.

“Why are we forced to push the notion of profits to the limit? Is there a healthy and balanced level of profits? Instead of us entrepreneurs keeping everything for ourselves, why don’t we donate part of the profits to our workers, as we do at Brunello Cucinelli, giving back 1% to them?”, asked Cucinelli. He went on to say that “we must all work together. As it happens, Italy has the best welfare state, and we lead the world in many manufacturing sectors. Besides, we need to give moral and economic dignity to many jobs that are undervalued by society. At [Brunello Cucinelli], blue-collar workers start at the fifth level [in the contractual scale], and they can improve at the same rate of white-collar ones, and even be paid 15% more than them. For us, this approach is paying dividends. Of course, we must reiterate two final concepts: we need to take good care of the workplace, and always respect Creation.”

 
Talking about fiscal 2024, Cucinelli said that “this year is going very well for us, we’ve had a very fine [commercial] season, all our projects are proceeding as planned, and we’ve already received the orders for Spring/Summer 2025. We’re also very confident for 2026 and 2027.”
 
Cucinelli concluded by saying that “a stock market listing isn’t only a means of generating money. It’s also a way of becoming more international, of opening up to the world.” He then invited some of his business colleagues on-stage to talk about their experiences, among them Massimo Galassini of Usco, Giovanni Sgariboldi of Euroitalia (which produces the Brunello Cucinelli perfumes), Elisabetta Franchi, founder of the eponymous fashion label, Claudio Marenzi of Herno, Claudio Rovere of Hind, Giovanni Lucchese of Florim, Giovanni Battista Vacchi of Colombini Group, and Cristian Pederzini of Italpizza.