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Luxury titan Bernard Arnault has a foot in the door at Herms International. The question now is: Will it swing open further?

In a surprising revelation that could ignite a battle for one of luxury's most hallowed names, LVMH Mot Hennessy Louis Vuitton said Saturday it holds a 14.2 percent stake in family-controlled Herms, and plans to be a long-term shareholder.

The luxury conglomerate, parent of about 60 brands including Fendi, Sephora and Dom Perignon, said it holds more than 15 million shares of Herms, plus more than 3 million derivative instruments it intends to covert into shares. That eventually would give LVMH 17.1 percent of the share tiffany sale, at an investment cost of 1.45 billion euros, or $2.02 billion at current exchange rates.

LVMH moved quickly to squash any takeover speculation, saying it has no intention of launching a tender offer, taking control of Herms nor seeking board representation.& The objective of LVMH is to be a long-term shareholder of Herms and to contribute to the preservation of the family and French attributes which are at the heart of the global success of this iconic brand.

Still, few observers expect Arnault who famously won control of Vuitton and LVMH in the late Eighties by pitting family member against family member and ultimately launching a hostile takeover bid will be content with a silent minority holding.

More recently, Arnault, LVMH's chairman and chief executive officer, waged a long and bitter battle for control of Tiffany Bangle sale, which was ultimately stymied when, in 1999, Franois Pinault stepped in as a white knight and launched a tender offer of his own, allowing PPR to position itself as a rival luxury group.

I believe LVMH is parking itself in pole position for a future acquisition. It's only possible to extract the synergies if they control the company outright, said Luca Solca, luxury analyst at Bernstein Research in London. This suggests a portion of the family wanted to sell.& This could happen relatively quickly or take many years.

Why on earth would LVMH want to take a noncontrolling bystander interest? Surely they are looking to convince a further packet of shareholders, agreed another luxury expert, speaking on condition of anonymity. They can easily fund further purchases.

Arnault has long expressed admiration for Herms almost as Tiffany Bracelet sale as Herms management has sought to trumpet the family's unity and will to remain independent despite interest from eager suitors.

The family wants to keep control of its group.& Herms is a jewel, Bertrand Puech, executive manager, chairman and member of the management board, told a shareholders meeting in 2008, then addressing persistent speculation of an imminent bid by Arnault. We are indeed desirable, but we are prudent and are bent on defending our property. No takeover bid is in view.

Late Sunday, Herms issued a statement saying its family shareholders are fully united around a common business vision and have confirmed that they are not contemplating any significant selling of shares.

The statement noted that Herms has treated and will always treat its shareholders with utmost respect.

According to market sources, LVMH was offered the bundle of Herms shares from an intermediary, but the identity of the sellers and the middleman could not immediately be learned.

Herms went public in 1993, but the founding family still maintains control of about three-quarters of the Tiffany CuffLink sale shares and voting rights.

The family, made up of three branches under the Dumas, Puech and Guerrand surnames, numbers between 40 and 60 members, sources said.

Shares of Herms International have soared more than 88 percent over the past year as the luxury sector rebounded strongly from the global financial crisis.

Herms is viewed as a safe haven for investors in the sector, and the stock price also has been bloated by persistent takeover speculation. The death last May of former chief executive officer and charismatic family patriarch Jean-Louis Dumas was seen as a milestone likely to increase the likelihood of a transaction.

Herms shares rose 2.1 percent Friday to close at 176.20 euros, or $245.39, on the Paris Bourse. Trading volumes over the past week have averaged just over 100,000 shares daily.

According to his calculations, Solca said LVMH paid about 80 euros, or $111.61 at current exchange, per Herms share, putting it at a multiple closer to sector averages and at a level where it would be possible to add value to the investment.

He noted the value of floated Herms shares would automatically fall if a very large chunk of shares hit the market and the LVMH surprise buy is likely to deflate Herms's market value now that there's less pressure in the immediate term for an immediate takeover.

Another London-based analyst said the transaction is likely to boost the share Tiffany Earring sale of other luxury issues including Bulgari and Burberry, noting, If there's appetite for consolidation, it's not likely to stop there.

LVMH is unlikely to increase its Herms investment in the near term, but historically the French group rarely takes a minority stake and stays at that level. In the London analyst's estimation, Herms would fit logically at the pinnacle of LVMH's fashion and leather goods portfolio, and not cannibalize any of its other brands.

 

Scandinavian culture is hot, with Stieg Larsson's best-selling novels set to be turned into Hollywood films, Copenhagen-based Noma's nomination as the world's best restaurant and the enduring popularity of the TV mystery Wallander, which returns to PBS this month.

The timing couldn't be better for Georg Jensen, Scandinavia's global luxury lifestyle brand, which has been streamlining operations, tweaking and updating its product and burnishing its image.

Chief executive officer Ulrik Garde Due said in an exclusive Tiffany Note the Danish company is midway through a five-year plan to modernize operations and update its image as a showcase for design.

We really want to take ownership of the luxury end of the business, enhance our market positioning and take Danish design into the next century, he said over a Nioise salad at a restaurant near Piccadilly. For so long, and in so many markets outside Scandinavia, Georg Jensen was only about jewelry and watches. Our aim today is to focus on Georg Jensen as a lifestyle brand.

The spring ad campaign features the Danish model Freja Beha Erichsen, half-naked, adorned with the brand's jewelry and perched on a table covered in a stylized jumble of fruit, cheese, flowers and silver Georg Jensen table ware.

In a similar vein, Garde Due said his goal with the new-generation Jensen stores, including units in Shanghai, Copenhagen Airport and Manhattan, is to create a showplace for Danish design right down to the floors and furniture. The aim is to replace the past museum-like feel with a warm and homey one, he said.

In each store, Garde Due installed walls that display must-have gifts from the brand's Living Collection, the stainless Tiffany Pendant line that first launched after World War II.

Prices for the must-have gifts range from about $100 to $1,000. In addition, Garde Due has added a bridal registry and plans to soon refresh and relaunch the brand's e-commerce site. Packaging has been updated, as well. Boxes now have a hand-hammered silver texture, and are embossed with the brand's crest in silver foil.

Garde Due intends to have launched 16 new-concept stores by the end of the year, including a 3,500-square-foot flagship in Tokyo's Nihonbashi district that opened this month. On Feb. 1, the brand will reopen its London Bond Street unit.

Eventually, Garde Due said he hopes to transfer Georg Jensen's Scandinavian vibe to hotel interiors. The company is in talks with hotels in Scandinavia, Japan, the U.S. and the U.K.

In addition, Georg Jensen is ramping up jewelry and tableware offerings, and dipping into its recently reorganized and digitized archives. We've been working more proactively with the archives after having cleaned them up, Garde Due said. But we haven't lost the charm there is still the Tiffany Ring of old books where the archives are kept.

The company was founded in 1904 when the silversmith and sculptor Georg Jensen started his workshop in Copenhagen, creating jewelry, cutlery and table ware. By the time he died in 1935, the firm had developed into a brand with shops in Paris, London, Berlin and New York. There are now about 100 stores in 12 countries and wholesale accounts in Europe, Asia, the U.S., Australia and the Middle East.

The company is still famed for its design. Next month, Georg Jensen will receive the Design and Commerce Brooklyn Museum/Modernism Design Award at the opening of a show of decorative and fine arts at the Park Avenue Armory.

Georg Jensen offers a mix of updated classics as well as new designs.

Last month, at 10 Corso Como in Milan, the brand unveiled a new element in its Moonlight collection a sterling silver ring covered in a cluster of black agate grapes. The grape was always used by Georg Jensen as part of the design language, Garde Due said. And our strategy has been to tap into stores that we would not have sold to in the past. The rings will also be sold at the brand's flagships in London, New York, Sydney and Tokyo.

For fall, the company began rolling out a series of refashioned iconic pieces such as the curving pitcher and tray by the Tiffany Set Henning Koppel in stainless steel at more accessible price points compared with the original silver.

This month, Jensen celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Fusion Collection, which is based around different colored gold jewelry that fits together like puzzle pieces. A special edition of pav diamond jewelry marks the anniversary.

Georg Jensen is majority-owned by the Danish private equity fund Axcel, which also owns Royal Copenhagen. Sales 75 percent comes from jewelry and watches totaled $141.2 million last year. Garde Due said he expects that figure to grow in the double-digits this year and anticipates the company will turn a profit in 2010, reflecting rising sales and cost-cutting measures.

Last year, Garde Due closed unprofitable stores, including shop-in-shops, and, in the U.S., slashed the number of wholesale accounts to 50 from 250. He also fine-tuned the distribution, launching watches with Barneys New York and Saks Fifth Avenue, and cut costs overall by streamlining the supply chain.

At the same time, Garde Due tried to remain faithful to the traditions of the company. Georg Jensen has always worked with outside talent. The company has proposals out with Scandinavian designers. The brand has sponsored fashion designers such as Ole Yde in a bid to promote Scandinavian Tiffany Watch in its larger sense.

Regitze Overgaard, who designs organically shaped jewelry, will come out with a gold and diamond collection for spring, while the interiors expert Ilse Crawford will create a Georg Jensen home collection using stone, wood and metals.

HITTING MIAMI: Looks like Balenciaga will be opening in more places than Asia during the next year or two. The Parisian fashion house just inked a lease at Bal Harbour Shops, where it joins other Gucci Group brands YSL, Bottega Veneta and Sergio Rossi. Balenciaga takes possession of its nearly 1,400-square-foot space on the first floor between Fendi and Tod's in June, according to Matthew Whitman Lazenby, general partner and director of leasing for the center. Calling it an exciting brand that continues to evolve, he reports the partnership has been a long time in the making. We have a great relationship with Gucci Group and started these conversations even when Balenciaga was just emerging again, said Lazenby.

HOMECOMING: After taking over every square inch of the Tiffany Earring Grand Palais in Paris for its spring ready-to-wear show earlier this month, Chanel is reverting to more intimate environs for pre-fall. On Dec. 7, the French house plans to show its latest mtiers d'arts collection a luxury rtw line made with the specialty ateliers Chanel owns where it all started back in 2002: at its Rue Cambon couture salons.

FOR THE DOGS: Pet lover Vanessa Getty pulls out all the stops when it comes to raising money for her charity supporting a free mobile spay-and-neuter pet clinic in the San Francisco Bay area. On Thursday she threw a party for her pet project, with the help of designer Ralph Lauren's fall 2010 collection and brother-in-law Peter Getty, who opened his beautifully appointed late-19th-century Italianate Victorian to the cause. Friends listened to San Francisco Symphony principal pianist Robin Sutherland play and shopped. It's very Ralph in here. It all fits, Vanessa Getty said to guests, remarking on how well the designer's clothes meshed with the mansion's decor, while reminding everyone that 15 percent of sales would go to the pet clinic, operated by the Peninsula Humane Society. Getty whose family has four rescue cats, including one brought home this summer from a vacation in Hawaii said she handpicked the fashions to reflect the chic but casual lifestyle of San Franciscans. Swooping in early to make a purchase was Tiffany Key Ring Suppes, who picked up a beaded and sequined black silk-georgette cocktail slip dress with tulle overlay from Lauren's runway collection to wear that night at a donors' party at the city's Palace of the Legion of Honor museum.

MAN'S WORLD: Salvatore Ferragamo launched its World line of men's shoes with a cocktail party, co-hosted by Vanity Fair, at its Fifth Avenue flagship on Thursday evening. And to help celebrate, the brand brought in lots of, well, men. John Legend, Seth Meyers, Matthew Settle, James Tupper (who brought Anne Heche) and Massimo Ferragamo packed into the two-story space as other guests checked out the merchandise. Five percent of profits from World shoe sales will be donated to the Acumen Fund, a nonprofit that uses entrepreneurial approaches to address issues of global poverty.

MANGO NIGHT: Jean Paul Gaultier took the gold the Gold Button, that is honoring his fashion career at the El Botn-Mango Fashion Awards, held in Barcelona's National Museum of Catalan Art. Gaultier called the awards a great opportunity for young designers. Apart from the economic generosity, the chance to produce a collection for a brand like Mango will open so many doors. If such an award had been around when I first began, I would have presented myself as a candidate, he concluded. Tiffany Key out nine other finalists, the winner of Mango's third international newcomer competition was Belgian designer Lena Lumelsky. Prize winnings totaled 300,000 euros, or $418,000. I'm going to stay in Antwerp, she said, but thanks to this award, I can fulfill my dream, which is to show one day in Paris.

In the crowd was Mango's fall ad face Scarlett Johansson, who said she is collaborating with the Barcelona retailer on a handbag line. And as for the future, Maybe I'll have a family in 10 years or so, who knows. I live in the present.

DESIGN DUO: Ally Hilfiger, who has styled Nary Manivong's collection for the past two seasons, is teaming up with him to design a brand-new line called Nahm. It's all shirtdresses of different fabrics, lengths and cuts, said Hilfiger. Hilfiger and Manivong plan to introduce the line for fall 2011 and manufacture it entirely in New York, where they are based. Manivong had previously produced his own collection for five seasons. The Laotian-American designer was nominated for a Rising Star Women's Ready-to-Wear Award in 2009 and 2010 and starred in the 2009 documentary Dressed, which chronicled his story from homelessness in Columbus, Ohio, to the runway.

BUFFING UP: There was plenty of eye candy at Sotheby's Monday night when the New York Academy of Art Tiffany Money Clip its 19th annual Take Home a Nude benefit auction, this year co-sponsored by Chanel and Baccarat and honoring artist Eric Fischl. Multiple galleries were set up on the seventh floor teeming with silent-auction lots featuring various interpretations of the evening's theme that had Eileen Guggenheim, Maureen Chiquet, Dalia Oberlander, Samantha and Aby Rosen, Jamie Tisch and Hana Soukupova making the rounds during cocktails.

A five-months-pregnant Gretchen Mol admitted to not being terribly shy about posing in the buff, even in her current state.

Will Cotton did some photographs of me towards the end of my [first] pregnancy for his own collection and gave me a print, she said, adding that she had no idea of the current provenance of said works. If you trust the artist, it can't be that damaging.

A less free-spirited Padma Lakshmi had an entire wall of one gallery devoted to portraits of her from a recent sitting she did for 15 artists clothed.

I felt more comfortable in what I was wearing, she said simply of abstaining from going completely bare (Lakshmi wore a champagne Collette Dinnigan slip). I found it very meditative. I was most worried about moving.

And there was a live auction of works by the likes of John Currin and Tiffany Necklace Baechler, followed by dinner.

SLAVS TO FASHION: French couturier Stphane Rolland will be the guest designer at TOP Ukraine's annual Le Grand Fashion Show, to be held in Kiev today. The designer has tapped a number of top models to walk in the show, including Karolina Kurkova who will open the 37-look fall-winter couture collection. Wearing the bridal dress will be Ukrainian born Snejana Onopka. A spokeswoman for Rolland said actors Robert De Niro and Jean-Claude Van Damme are awaited. Founded by Ukrainian businessman Oleksandr Onishchenko, TOP Ukraine is an organization that aims to promote the Ukraine internationally.

Diego Della Valle has formally introduced the iconic Italian opera house La Scala to China in a gas tank.

The Tod's SpA's chairman and chief executive officer threw an exclusive cocktail and dinner party followed by a special pas de deux performed by the theater's prima ballerina, Sabrina Brazzo, and lead dancer, Marco Messina, in a massive gas storage tank turned amphitheater located in 798, an art district occupying the grounds of decommissioned military factory buildings in Beijing.

The event, held in a venue called Tank 751, marked Tod's new Tiffany Ring with La Scala whereby the brand will support the theater's productions for a year and help promote its values worldwide. An Italian Dream, a short film featuring La Scala ballet dancers interpreting the steps it takes to make a Tod's shoe, also premiered in China. The video, available on the brand's Web site, made its debut in Milan in September.

Earlier this week, Tod's marked the partnership at the brand's boutique in Tokyo. Other celebrations are planned in Russia and the Middle East.

This is an event to say hello to our Chinese friends and to try to explain what is behind Tod's, Della Valle said while surrounded by local celebrities during an after party featuring music from the DJ Max Chipchase. We try to do that with La Scala because La Scala represents Italian culture and style of life.

The Tod's chairman declined to comment on a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission released tiffany that said Della Valle had upped his investment in Saks Inc. from 11.1 percent to 19.1 percent, making him the retailer's biggest shareholder over Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Hel, who owns around 16 percent.

The SEC filing indicated Della Valle is considering greater engagement with Saks and possibly a position on the board.

It is not possible to say anything because it is a Tiffany Bangle in process, a venture, he said. Everything is price sensitive. It is not possible to say anything at the moment.

Della Valle was willing to briefly discuss China, where the brand has more than 20 stores.

What we try to do and what we want to do is remain only in the real exclusive part of the business, he said. We don't want to change our DNA, to work only for our high level customers. We want to develop for only high level and exclusive markets.

Many members of China's increasingly high level and exclusive markets attended Friday's party. Around 200 guests arrived in cool, smoggy weather to a red carpet entrance to the tank, illuminated on the outside with red and white lights and decorated on the inside with sweeping velvet red curtains and silhouettes of ballet Tiffany Bracelet projected onto walls, touches intended to replicate the atmosphere of La Scala in Milan.

After an opening cocktail party, guests moved behind a semicircular stage and the red velvet curtains to a space filled with tables covered with red rose centerpieces and white and gold dinnerware accented with metallic chargers for dinner.

The menu featured a first course of buffalo mozzarella and tomato with basil pesto followed by roasted celeriac served with a wild mushroom truffle ragout and chocolate cake with mascarpone ice cream for dessert.

The film's premiere and ballet performance followed dinner.

Carina Lau, an actress from Hong Kong, and Alice Dellal, daughter of Brazilian model Andrea Dellal, were among the VIPs. Marisa Tomei also attended. It was the Oscar-winning actress' first trip to China.

It [China] has obviously opened up so much in the last few years, Tiffany CuffLink said. It is a very accessible place, and I think it has its good sides and its downsides. You have to search a little more for the old China. Now it is very cosmopolitan. It is very fashionable. Everyone has been really lovely. This is a really accessible, lovely city.

 

 

 

But quietly, subtly, the goat people descended upon Tucson. They sampled cheeses. They talked milk quality, goat soaps and artificial insemination -- sometimes over drinks. They even ate tortilla chips shaped like goats. And when it is all said and done today, they will dress up high-end goats in sparkles, marching them down a fashion runway as part of a spotlight sale where bids will hit thousands of dollars. Then, their business done here, they will scatter across the country to their farms and their goats. Back to the land.

Chew on this: Tucson played host to the American Dairy Goat tiffany engagement rings annual convention this week. Last year, it was in Buffalo, N.Y. Next year, it will be in Grand Rapids, Mich. But this year it was in the Old Pueblo, after a 13-year absence -- they were last here in 1997. Three hundred people, maybe even 350, converged on the Holiday Inn and Suites, 4550 S. Palo Verde Road, this week to mingle with their fellow goat people. The hotel lobby was accented with colorful papier-mache goats.

"This is my fun time," said June Johnson of east Mesa, who owns the mobile petting zoo Dreams Come True.

Johnson was psyched to have the American Dairy Goat Association's national convention in-state this year. She plans to get into the soaps and lotions business, and the workshops would be a big help. Plus, she gets the chance to mingle with bigwigs of the dairy goat world.

People like Steve Considine.

"My last name is to the goat business as Kennedy is to the Democratic Party," tiffany sale said. "We're the goat mafia."

Considine, 63, is the national co-chair of the American Dairy Goat Association. He's the dairy manager of Redwood Hill Farm in Sonoma County, Calif. The man can't remember not working with goats.

Goats, Considine said, are great.

When it comes to cow dairy products, Considine says most people are lactose intolerant, whether they realize it or not. That's not the case with goat products, he said.

So, to summarize: Goats 1, Cows 0.

"We're trying to educate the public on it," he said. "It's now being understood by nutritionists and health-care Tiffany Bracelets on sale that the use of goats' milk in the diet is preferred."

The problem is, goats have been getting a bad rap for years, he said.

Take the tin-can thing. Goats don't eat tin cans, they just chew on them, he said. And then there's the whole branding issue.

"Goats, in western culture, have been archetypically associated with evil and the devil," Considine said. "There is a very negative connotation that came along with goats, sort of cultural baggage. ... If you look at most depictions of the devil, he does have goat hooves and horns."

Score one, indirectly, for the cows.

In a surprising move -- largely because of feta -- Tiffany CuffLinks on sale pinned this branding issue on the ancient Greeks and their god, Pan, who was depicted as half goat and half man. That depiction, he said, later morphed into the devil imagery.

Finally, he pointed out that goats are very smart, adaptable animals -- much more so than ... cows.

"You will see goats surviving in places no other animal, particularly a cow, could survive," he said.

So, to summarize: Goats 2, Cows 1-ish.

In addition to talking goats -- one seminar was called "Buck Management: 'Our kings and their jewels' " -- conventioneers have had the chance to see the best of us: Trips to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, the Catalina Mountains and Mission San Xavier del Bac were all planned.

But on Tuesday, which was still toward the beginning of the convention, Greg Tiffany Earrings on sale had only seen the airport, which he said he thought was pretty nice. Still, Morris said it was great to be in the Old Pueblo.

Right on. Here in the Old Pueblo, the goat people are always welcome.