Dainese reportedly sold for €1
Just three years after being bought out, Dainese is switching hands again - for a surprisingly low amount.
If you’re like us, you’ve probably spent hours of your motorcycling life salivating over Dainese gear, but then turning to a more affordable brand when it comes to actually buying your kit. Turns out that the most affordable Dainese item is the company itself. According to internet scuttlebutt and a handful of sources, the company was sold last week for just €1.
That’s 87 pence by the current exchange rate. Not even enough for a KitKat Chunky.
The catch here is that the sale was reportedly made to the company’s largest creditors: HPS Investment Partners and Arcmont Asset Management. Dainese was in debt to the tune of roughly €300 million to the investment firms.
According to an article in Bloomberg UK, HPS and Arcmont had just last week floated the clothing brand an additional €25 million, adding to the roughly €285 million it had underwritten since 2022.
The move has neither been confirmed nor denied by Dainese.
“Dainese continues to be engaged in constructive discussions with its financial partners in order to strengthen its capital structure and improve its financial flexibility after significant market volatility,” a Dainese spokesperson told Bloomberg UK via email.
According to La Conceria, a website dedicated to happenings in the leather industry (so, perhaps take this news with a grain of salt), last week’s happenings culminated with the sale of Dainese to HPS and Arcmont for the symbolic price of €1. Essentially, then, this is a debt-for-equity swap. It’s one of the first such agreements of its kind for Italy, according to Bloomberg UK, and it’s a move that may not inspire confidence.
After all, Dainese’s previous owner was a different investment group, the colossal Carlyle Group - which bought Dainese in 2022 for €630 million. At the time, Carlyle said it was keen to see the Italian brand expand in lucrative markets like China and the United States.
That doesn’t appear to have happened. Sales have been slow for the maker of gear for motorcyclists, skiers, and cyclists. And balancing the books has been tricky. According to Bloomberg UK, Dainese saw losses of €120 million last year.
Dainese was founded in 1972 and is headquartered in Vincenza, Italy. According to a 2022 article by Reuters, it employs roughly 1,000 people.
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Chris Cope is a fourth-generation journalist, originally from Texas. He has lived in the UK for roughly two decades and has been writing about motorcycles for most of that time. He has written for dozens of publications and websites in the UK, US, Canada, and Australia.
