After nine years under the Chinese flag, the Clergerie house is not becoming entirely French, but it is getting closer to its origins. Owned since 2011 by First heritage brands, an investment fund controlled by a Hong Kong family which made a fortune in textiles in China, the luxury footwear company founded in 1981 in Romans-sur-Isère (Drôme) by Robert Clergerie was bought back, for an amount kept secret, by Mirabaud Living Heritage. This other investment fund is managed by the Swiss financial group Mirabaud, which has entrusted the management to Renaud Dutreil, a former minister of Jacques Chirac.
Clergerie was the first European prestige brand acquired by the Fung family fund, which then set its sights, with less success, on Sonia Rykiel (the brand could not be relaunched and went bankrupt in the summer of 2019 ) then, with more success, on the Belgian leather goods maker Delvaux. If the latter has developed strongly in Asia, this is not the case for Robert Clergerie, whose activity (almost 20 million euros last year, in a dozen own stores and 200 points of multi-brand sales) is still focused on Europe and the United States.
Accelerate the growth of the brand
The company, which has 180 employees, including 130 at the Romans-sur-Isère site, where it has the last shoe factory in the region, already generates 30% of its sales online. Jean-Marc Loubier, a former executive of LVMH who heads the First heritage brands fund, has found another partner capable of ensuring the industrial future of Clergerie and of investing in accelerating the growth of the brand.
Created in 2017, Mirabaud Patrimoine Vivante is already a shareholder in the jewelers Mauboussin and Korloff, in the women's ready-to-wear label Anne Fontaine (renowned for its white shirts), in the sports brand Le Coq Sportif as well as in the footwear Carel and Carvil. Its objective is to "safeguard the manufacturing know-how of companies producing large series while retaining the spirit of craftsmanship".
