Luxury Check Up
Can Growth Be Achieved through New Markets Alone?
Lead Sponsor
Merrill Lynch
Main Sponsor
LECTRA
Poltrona Frau
Maison G.H. Mumm
Alfa Romeo
WGSN
RODA
Caffé Vergnano
Feudi della Medusa
Phorma
Visconti Banqueting
Altec S.p.a.
ISKILDE
Merrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch is one of the world's leading wealth management, capital markets and advisory companies, with offices in 38 countries and territories and total client assets of approximately $1.7 trillion. As an investment bank, it is a leading global trader and underwriter of securities and derivatives across a broad range of asset classes and serves as a strategic advisor to corporations, governments, institutions and individuals worldwide. Merrill Lynch owns approximately half of BlackRock, one of the world's largest publicly traded investment management companies with more than $1 trillion in assets under management. For more information on Merrill Lynch, please visit www.ml.com.
LECTRA
Lectra is the world leader in integrated technology solutions that automate, streamline and accelerate product design, development and manufacturing processes for the soft goods industries. Lectra develops the most advanced specialized software, cutting systems, and provides associated services to a broad array of markets including fashion (apparel, accessories, footwear), automotive (car seats and interiors, airbags), aeronautical, marine and furniture. Lectra serves 20,000 customers in more than 100 countries, with 1,550 employees. The company is listed on Euronext Paris. For more information, please visit www.lectra.com.
Poltrona Frau
AN INTERNATIONAL BRAND NAME REPRESENTING THE DESIGN, ELEGANCE AND PERFECTION OF ITALIAN-MADE PRODUCTS. Coming from solid Italian origins but with an international reach, Poltrona Frau is a leader in top of the range furniture, and is a spokesman throughout the world for the values associated with the design and production of Italian-made goods. Founded in 1912, Poltrona Frau has been refining its sophisticated expertise in hand-crafted workmanship through 90 years of history. This expertise, perfected through time, continues to be passed down by master craftsmen from generation to generation. Today, as in the past, this heritage of knowledge and skill is captured within each piece of Poltrona Frau furniture. The intimate and timeless elegance, the personality of each individual piece, are the fruit of the craftsman’s skill and a design that enhances hand-crafted workmanship even in the most modern forms. The manufacturing expertise has always been combined with research into materials, in order to obtain the best from leather and from the exclusive Pelle Frau®, modernising them while keeping their original, natural softness, warmth and tactile qualities. The same care and passion is also devoted to the most innovative and technologically materials. With more than 40 monobrand stores, 7 of which flagship stores, stretching from New York and Rome to Paris and Milan, Poltrona Frau is the brand name that symbolises luxury construed as discreet and universal elegance, as craftsmanship and perfection. This original encounter between tradition and modernity has made Poltrona Frau a highly recognisable presence in a number of sectors: residential, office, contract work and interiors for cars, aeroplanes, yachts and helicopters. Here at Poltrona Frau the great classics, such as the Vanity Fair and Chesterfield, sit freely alongside contemporary forms and furnishings, in collaboration with Italian and international designers such as Pierluigi Cerri, Achille Castiglioni, Michele De Lucchi, Jean-Marie Massaud and Emilio Ambasz. The uniqueness of shape, the beauty of the materials and the fineness of the hand-crafted work are the distinctive traits that make each piece of furniture unique. Together with the best designers, the research into elegant, comfortable and personal shapes and solutions continues in the work space, interpreted by Poltrona Frau with exclusive furnishings combining practicality and atmosphere, style and ergonomics. Sophisticated settings are also provided for the high-end Contract sector. Poltrona Frau develops and creates projects alongside architects like Jean Nouvel, Norman Foster and Richard Meier throughout the world. From the Palau Reina Sofia in Valencia, by the Santiago Calatrava Studio, the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles by Frank O. Gehry, and the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, by Renzo Piano, to the European Parliament in Strasbourg and the Italian Stock Exchange in Milan. The contemporary traveller’s habitats designed by Poltrona Frau’s Interiors division reveal the same attention to quality, usability and manufacturing details. Ferrari, Maserati, Rolls Royce, Japan Airlines, Air France, and Star Alliance - today Poltrona Frau is designing interiors upholstered in Pelle Frau® and leather for the automobile and aeronautic industries at the highest level. Poltrona Frau is an international point of reference for luxurious comfort.
Maison G.H. Mumm
The house of Mumm was founded in 1827, at Reims by the German noble, Georges Herman Mumm, who loved to repeat “only the best”. In 1875 to emphasize the quality of the champagne, Mr. Mumm decided to incorporate the prestigious Cordon Rouge on all of their bottles. The champagne was decorated with the famous red ribbon, as a tribute to the Légion d'Honneur. Quality and the search for excellence has always been a central point in the production on the G.H. Mumm champagne, therefore only the best grapes, from the most important regions are used. These regions which in average score 98% on the scale of quality include: Aÿ, Bouzy, Ambonnay, Verzy, Verzenay, Avize, Cramant.
Alfa Romeo
The new Alfa Romeo era... Exploiting the very latest developements in technology has made the new Alfa Romeo cars decisively superior, offering the highest level of dynamic response, comfort and safety, both passive and active. All done whilst maintaining the traditional character and sporting style of Alfa Romeo and its unmistakeably Italian temperament.
WGSN
WGSN is the world's leading online research, trends analysis and news service for the fashion industry. With over 35,000 users worldwide from more than 1,800 global brands, retailers and manufacturers, the WGSN team travels extensively on behalf of clients, analysing catwalks, covering the major trade shows, following real-time information or forecasting major apparel trends, cultural moods and consumer attitudes.
RODA
Roda began as an accessory line inspired by the Savvy Nobel English Gentleman. The collection incorporates ultra fine cottons, silks and cashmere, made exclusively in Italy. Today Roda has expanded its line from Ties, Scarf's and Pochettes to a full lifestyle collection with the same passionate savoir-faire of close attention to detail in keeping with the sophistication of design in colors. The Roda Cosmopolitan Man remains a Nobel Modern Gentleman dressed exclusively in classic Italian and English fabrications, with sophistication of the New Dandy.
Caffé Vergnano
Caffé Vergnano is an important production reality in the field of coffee, that has been managed with care and commitment by the Vergnano family for four generations. With the plant of Santena covering 8000 square meters, equipped with nine automated production lines, and a growth in terms of a two-digit figure from 2001 till today, Vergnano ranks among the first coffee producers in Italy. A solid Company aiming at the perfect product quality and making an added value out of tradition, in order to gain success in the Italian market and conquer new important spaces on the international scenario. This success should be ascribed to the constant search for quality perfection, which true coffee connoisseurs have appreciated and acknowledged to Caffé Vergnano for over a century. Since 1882 Caffé Vergnano has delighted the palates of their customers with a wide range of products available both through the channel of mass market and through coffee bars.
Feudi della Medusa
In 1996 Francesco Siclari and his wife Heide, driven by a great passion and enticed by the ancient virtues of the Sardinian land decided to acquire and replant an ancient vineyard in the extreme south and thus beginning the production of high quality wines. Today the company, thanks to the leadership of the Mr. Siclari and the precious contribution of the wine-making expert Pascal Chatonnet, is a young, prestigious and very promising reality on a national level, as is attested by the main guides and the most prestigious sector publications. Feudi della Medusa, company and vineyard stretches over a territory of 65 hectares of which 50 are vineyards in the area of Santa Margherita di Pula. In addition to this main production centre, the company also manages another 40 hectares of vineyard positioned in the most fertile areas for the production of indigenous vines. Some of these ancient vines are over 100 years old, and have all been grown according to traditional systems on limestone or sandy terrains. The particular variety of soil mixture found on the land of the ‘Feudi della Medusa’ company, marked by Palaeozoic granites, a dry and well-ventilated climate and considerable thermal variation, provide for ideal paedoclimactic conditions, thus attesting to the natural winegrowing vocation of this particular area. The company policy of very low yields, handpicked in small wicker baskets, a very painstaking bunch selection and a strict compliance with vinification and ageing regulations, ensures that the wines are of a very high quality, a feature that is the mainstay of all the company’s production. The company has chosen to produce very prestigious wines, elegant, smooth, ‘unique’, the result of the encounter of indigenous vines and a very exclusive selection of international vines which, in three distinctive collections. The collections include the indigenous wines, the mythological wines, and the ancient rare vines. The indigenous wines are the result of unblended vinification and are a true example of the unmistakable character of the most intriguing local grapes. They are produced from selected vineyards located in the most suitable areas of Sardinia and cultivated according to very strict company specifications. These reds include: Cannonau di Sardegna DOC, Cagnulari IGT Isola dei Nuraghi, and Biddas IGT Isola dei Nuraghi (A blend of the four main Sardinian indigenous vines stocks, cagnulari, cannoanu, carignano, bovale sardo) These whites include Vermentino di Sardegna DOC and Sa perda Bianca IGT Isola dei Nuraghi. The ‘Feudi della Medusa’ company also presents a range highly prestigious “mythological wines”. These include: Gerione IGT Isola dei Nuraghi (red), Norace IGT Isola dei Nuraghi (red), and Alba Nora IGT Isola dei Nuraghi (white). A completely different story is the one we have developed through our ‘Antiche vigne rare’ wine collection. Through this brand the company has chosen to produce original and native indigenous Sardinian vines. This has lead to a limited production of Cagnulari, whose grapes are produced from vineyards of between 40 and 100 years of age. Carignano is also produced. These grapes all come from original vineyards that survived the vine-pest epidemic of 1870. Only approximately 4000 bottles are produced. These ancient rare wines include: Arrubias (Carignano) IGT Isola dei Nuraghi (red), Crisaore (Cagnulari) IGT Isola dei Nuraghi (red), and Aristeo IGT Isola dei Nuraghi (white - vino passato)
Phorma
Since 1997, Phorma srl project, produces and distributes modern design items, furniture, household, kitchenware. All range of products are distributed principally in Italy and in many countries all around the world. Phorma is exclusive distributor for the Italian market of the brands: Tivoli Audio, Playsam, xO by Starck, Swedese, Fatboy, Geneva, Device Style and Oikos. The factors behind Phorma’s success and competitiveness are its business idea that lives with the times, its strong brand, a distinct product concept embodying the company’s core philosophy, flexible business operations, and a corporate culture that fosters creativity. Phorma is well introduced in the Italian market. We supply in more then 700 selected customers in the segments: design shops, furniture shops, department stores. The Phorma points of sale are the most important and prestigious shops in Italy.
Visconti Banqueting
Originality beyond taste. We all live in the midst of the relentless bustle of apparent innovation. But without the intuition of those who do not stop at the surface, the world would be at a standstill. Luckily in every field there are those who avoid the beaten path and manage to reach new horizons using creativity and diligence. Visconti Banqueting is a great vision which has become a reliable reality at the service of who - business or customer - is no longer satisfied with precise and prestigious banqueting. Those who choose Visconti are looking for a partner who is able to create a truly unique event today which will be unforgettable tomorrow. For us the refined quality of the food, remarkable even for the matching of flavours, shapes and colours, is the indispensable introduction to a consultancy which leaves nothing to chance. Atmosphere, furnishings, music, flavours, scents: for Visconti Banqueting everything must always go above and beyond. Our objective is to create events which leave a mark. Our method consists in harmonising every single ingredient of the event in order to impress upon it the decisive traits of a personality: that of the client. This explains why the originality of the solutions proposed is never an end in itself, but rather starts with an attentive evaluation of the true needs of who we are dealing with. The quality of the food, the care given to the set up and the professional team are the starting point. Then there is the unmistakable sign of Visconti Banqueting: the added value of style and originality that only those who rely on us can truly discover and appreciate.
Altec S.p.a.
Altec S.p.A. is a company who has been operating in the information technology market for the last 30 years. During this period , the activity expanded from lab repairs to on sight service for final users, based on prompt ed efficient presence. Thanks to a very deep knowledge of the needs of customers, Altec decided to promote comprehensive business solutions cooperating with the most important companies in the information technology field. Altec S.p.A has recently further enlarged its offer operating as Italian distributor of several important products in GDO , GDS, Loyalty & Promotion channel and large final users sectors.
