Since the beginning of December, the influencer and entrepreneur Chiara Ferragni has been involved in a media case involving the advertising of Balocco pandori, which is also marketed under her brand. The case has recently become legal, as Ferragni is being investigated by the Milan public prosecutor's office for serious fraud, and the damage to her image is followed by economic damage, as the multinational eyewear company Safilo has broken off cooperation with her and Coca – Cola has decided to have one Commercial with her, which was supposed to be broadcast at the end of January, can no longer be used.
Quantifying this economic damage is complicated also because, to the interrupted collaborations, there is also the activity on its social networks, which has dropped drastically: this means that Ferragni does not publish sponsored posts and stories on Instagram, which usually bring in tens of thousands of euros, sometimes even more, depending on the agreement. In any case, it is not certain that companies other than Safilo and Coca-Cola will decide to break off business relations with her, and this debate surrounding Ferragni and her company has drawn attention to a much less visible part of her activity, namely the corporate group , which he leads.
Ferragni owns Sisterhood, a company that is defined in financial jargon as a holding company, that is, a company that holds investments and shares in other companies that are therefore under its control. There are three under the Sisterhood, also owned by Ferragni, which deal with the influencer's various activities.
The first company is TBS Crew Srl, which is 100 percent owned by the holding company. It is the publisher of the blog The Blonde Salad, with which Ferragni originally became famous, and also an agency (“Talent Agency”) that takes care of the image and collaboration of Ferragni herself, her mother Marina Di Guardo, her sister Francesca Ferragni and make-up artist Manuele Mameli. TBS Crew achieved a turnover of 14.6 million euros in 2022, twice as much as in 2021, and a profit of 5.1 million euros. On his LinkedIn profile, he says he has developed “communications projects and strategies” with Lancôme, Pantene, Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton, Nespresso and others.
The second company in the group is Fenice Srl, whose business is based primarily on being the owner of the Chiara Ferragni brand. Fenice therefore profits from the sale of the products on which the brand is affixed: especially those with which the company deals directly and which are women's and children's clothing, shoes, bags, jewelry, glasses, underwear, costumes, make-up -up acts. up and also stationary store. These products are sold online, in the brand's flagship stores and in retail stores. For example, the jewelry collection is also resold in La Rinascente shopping centers.
Collaborations can then occur in which other companies decide to put the Chiara Ferragni brand on their products: last year, for example, Nespresso launched a collection of coffee machines and cups with the Chiara Ferragni brand.
In 2022, Fenice Srl achieved a turnover of 14.2 million euros and a profit of 3.4 million. The company is owned 32.5 percent by Ferragni's holding company, 40 percent by the investment company Alchimia Spa, 13.74 percent by Esuriens and another 13.75 percent by N1 Srl. The composition of shareholders is expected to change due to an agreement reached in June 2023, with which Alchimia sold part of its shares to another investment company, Avm Gestioni. At that time, the entire company was valued at 75 million euros.
However, Repubblica wrote that the share transfer had not yet taken place due to the Pandoro-Balocco affair. According to Repubblica, negotiations over the sale were complicated after the Competition or Markets Authority (better known as the Antitrust Authority) fined Fenice srl for an unfair business practice. However, AVM confirmed to the newspaper that the contract terms have not changed compared to last year and operations will cease by the end of 2024.
The third company owned by Sisterhood Holding is Ferragni Enterprise, which is almost entirely owned by Ferragni except for a small 0.1 percent stake in the mother's name. The rest of the share is registered in the name of the mother, Marina Di Guardo. Ferragni's properties are part of this company, including the one she recently moved to with her family in Milan's City Life district, which is estimated to be worth around 10 million euros.
In total, the three companies have an estimated value of around 100 million euros. It is not yet possible to estimate what impact the investigation will have on his companies: at the moment we only know that the companies Fenice and TBS Crew will have to pay a total fine of 1 million euros.
In addition to the recent hiatus with Safilo, Ferragni has several ongoing collaborations. For example, there is the collection of Nespresso products from the Chiara Ferragni brand; Added to this is the long-standing collaboration with Calzedonia and Intimissimi, Italian underwear brands that belong to the Veronese Oniverse group. Then it is the historical testimony of Pantene, a Procter & Gamble group company that produces hair products. After all, he has been working with Tod's, a brand specializing in luxury shoes and accessories, for several years, of which he is also a member of the board.
– Also read: How do you get out of a mess that Chiara Ferragni got into?