Waterford Wedgwood's chairman, Dr Tony O'Reilly, has repeated that the group is interested in bidding for the US leather group Coach if and when Coach is put up for sale by its majority shareholder Sara Lee.
Dr O'Reilly was speaking at a visit to Wedgwood's Asian headquarters in Taipei. "They have said they are going to sell Coach at some stage over the next year. Certainly it's a company we must take a look at," he said.
As a prelude to a possible sale of the group, Sara Lee is floating a 17.4 per cent stake in Coach on the stock market in a move that values the leather goods group at around $640 million (€727.7 million). Sara Lee announced in May it would sell several non-core businesses including Coach to concentrate on a smaller number of brand-name consumer products.
Coach designs and produces high-quality leather goods and accessories for men and women, including luggage, purses, outerwear and gloves. In the year to July 1st, Coach increased its sales by more than 8 per cent to $548.9 million while net income was up more than 130 per cent to $38.6 million. Those $548.9 million (€623 million) sales are below Waterford Wedgwood's forecast sales for 2000 of €1.05 billion. Coach's starting market capitalisation of $640 million (€727 million) compares to Waterford Wedgwood's current market capitalisation of €960 million.
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