Richemont prepares to sell French luxury leather goods brand Lancel

Cie. Financiere Richemont SA is preparing to sell its French luxury leather goods brand Lancel, which could fetch the Swiss luxury goods group around €500 million ($675 million), Bloomberg reported yesterday, citing two people familiar with the matter.

Richemont, the world's largest jewellery maker, has hired investment bank Nomura Holdings to help sell Lancel, the maker of Brigitte Bardot handbags, the report said.

Lancel was founded 1876 by Angèle who opened a shop near the brand new Opéra Garnier, in the liveliest quarter of Paris.

She sold articles for smokers, then, very soon, decided to turn her attention to ornaments and accessories for ladies.

In 1927 Lancel created its legendary bucket bag and two years later moved into four floors on Place de l'Opéra, the building which remains the brand's flagship to this day.

Her son Albert transformed the family business into a prosperous purveyor of luxury leather goods.

Richemont, the maker of Cartier jewellery and Piaget watches, acquired Paris-based Lancel in 1997 for $375 million.

Founded in 1988 by South African businessman Johann Rupert, Bellevue, Switzerland-based Richemont is the world's third-largest luxury goods company and the sixth-largest corporation by market capitalisation in the Swiss Market Index.

Richemont designs, manufactures, distributes and sells premium jewellery, watches, leather goods, writing instruments, firearms, clothing and accessories and generates annual revenues of €8.867 billion.

Its brands include several of the most prestigious names in the luxury industry such as Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Piaget, Vacheron Constantin, Jaeger-LeCoultre, IWC, Panerai and Montblanc.