Brunello Cucinelli: la quotazione di un'azienda familiare

This work analyses the relation between family businesses and IPOs; more specifically, it focuses on how corporate governance and management in family firms affect performance, making the owner decide for diversifying the capital structure of the firm he helped to create and develop through initial public offering. The study has been made through the analysis of different papers about owner family structure and governance in family businesses, founder impact on exit strategies and IPO strategy as a choice for growth. Some articles focus on Italian firms, to show the peculiarity of firms in this geographical region compared to other regions such as US. Finally, the work shows how these evidences can be applied to a very recent IPO of an Italian firm, Brunello Cucinelli, which has some particular features. Brunello Cucinelli is an Italian firm operating in the luxury segment, focusing on cashmere knitwear. It has been found by Brunello Cucinelli himself in the late '70s and gone public in April 2012, little more than one year ago. Brunello Cucinelli is the founder and owner of the firm by 63.3%, and the only member of the family covering an active role in the company. These characteristics make the company quiet unusual and interesting to be examined. The work leads to two different kinds of results: the first one is related to managerial aspects in family firms. There is evidence that governance structure and managerial team composition affects firm performance. The second one is concerning financial results of family firms going public: Brunello Cucinelli represents the good results of an IPO, leading to generate liquidity to be invested in growth objectives and debt repayment, maintaining a good share performance.