Sportswear label Stone Island close to €200 million revenue mark, opens first Hong Kong store

By

Edoardo Meliado

Translated by
Nicola Mira

Published
Jan 23, 2019

Stone Island keeps growing, quietly and constantly. The Italian sportswear label is renowned for its hi-tech outerwear inspired by military apparel and workwear, and is owned by Carlo Rivetti through his Sportswear Company, which expects to post a revenue just shy of €200 million in 2018. 

The Modena-based group is expanding independently, without relying on M&A operations. It has grown constantly, from a revenue of €56 million in 2012 to €147 million in 2017 (+35% over 2016).
 
Singapore’s sovereign investment fund Temasek holds a 30% stake in Sportswear Company, which is otherwise firmly in the hands of the Rivetti family, which in 1993 bought a 100% stake in Stone Island’s then parent company, C.P. Company, later rechristened Sportswear Company. The group generates 62% of its revenue outside Italy, and in the 2017 financial year it recorded a net operating margin of €34 million.

In 2019, Stone Island added a new tile to the increasingly extensive mosaic of its retail network, opening its first monobrand store in China, in Hong Kong. The 90-square-metre store, whose interiors have been designed by Marc Buhre of architecture studio Zeichenweg TM, is located at 9 Queen's Road Central.

 
Sportswear label Stone Island was founded in 1982 in Modena, Italy, by designer and creative director Massimo Osti and entrepreneur Trabaldo Togna. It currently operates 23 monobrand stores worldwide, in Italy, Europe (Hamburg, Munich, Sylt, Paris, Cannes, London, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Stockholm), the USA (New York, Los Angeles) and Asia (Tokyo, Seoul, Daegu). In Italy, Stone Island has stores in Milan, Rome, Florence, Venice, Turin, Verona, Forte dei Marmi and Riccione.
 
Sportswear Company is growing profitably, leveraging Stone Island’s heritage and adding a strong innovation drive, through its sustained R&D effort on fibres, fabrics and finished products (for example, it developed over 60,000 different dye formulas). This is the way forward for Stone Island, whose roots still lie in the Tela Stella fabric, a special fabric replicating the technical and functional features of the canvas covers of army trucks.