Strategies for the Textile Industry. Interview with Francesco Gentili

Interview with Francesco Gentili

An entrepreneur from Como, Francesco Gentili is the founder and CEO of the Gentili Mosconi Group, a rapidly growing company in the Italian and European textile industry.

Founded in 1988, Gentili Mosconi is headquartered in Casnate con Bernate (Como, Italy) and has sales offices in New York.

The company is publicly traded (on the Euronext Growth Milan market) and is currently undergoing rapid expansion, thanks to a series of acquisitions of historic Italian textile companies (Stamperia EMME, Tintoria Comacina, Manifatture Tessili Bianchi, and Lanificio Cesare Gatti), as well as significant investments in innovative companies within the sector (such as the chemical-textile analysis laboratory Elle.A.Ci.Ti and Fili di Innovazione, the first service and consulting firm for textile innovation in the Como district).

Good morning, Dr. Gentili, and thank you for your time. Following the post-pandemic recovery (2021–2022–2023)—which some perhaps greeted with excessive enthusiasm—the Italian and European textile industry has entered a phase of extreme difficulty, a period marked by the crisis in the luxury sector, the increase in textile imports from Asia, wars, energy crises, and a deeply uncertain international situation. As an experienced and successful textile entrepreneur, how do you view the situation first and foremost? What are the most critical challenges to be addressed today?

By nature, I’m always an optimist, but there’s no doubt that the situation the textile industry is facing today in not easy. We’re going through a very critical phase, exacerbated by a climate of chronic uncertainty that is generally holding back investment and consumer spending.

Personally, setting aside the energy crises and the evolution of global supply chains at the expense of European manufacturers, I believe that, overall, the textile and fashion industry has taken a direction that is inconsistent with the challenges the sector is currently facing: in recent decades, the industry has favored an approach that prioritizes business over the product.

To revitalize the textile and fashion industry, we must first and foremost put the product back at the center—and its ability to evoke poetry and inspire dreams. It must be the product that makes people talk about it—for its quality and the good ideas behind it, for its originality and its ability to stand out from mass production, but also for its story, a story we must know how to tell, speaking of the tradition of our textile districts and the ethics and sustainability that guide our production chain.

These are precisely the concepts I wanted to highlight both through the decision to become a Benefit Corporation as Gentili Mosconi and through the launch of the Gentili Mosconi Foundation, which aims to protect and promote our heritage, bringing the culture of textiles back to the forefront.

These considerations, which apply to all market segments, are all the more important in the high-end market: true luxury today, and the most successful brands in the sector, are driven by interest in the product itself, not by designers or other external figures, who are certainly essential but should not be the focus of the brand’s offering and communication.

Then there are the specific choices faced by textile entrepreneurs. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but as food for thought, I believe that the first step in tackling challenges—from a methodological standpoint—is to develop a clear plan and strategy. The entrepreneur must operate with common sense, must have a course and stick to it, and keep an eye out for any necessary course corrections; they must make choices and see them through.

At Gentili Mosconi, the starting point for implementing our growth strategy was our initial public offering, which gave us significant visibility and a strong reputation, and enabled the Group to expand through external growth by acquiring long-established Italian companies in the sector.

Gentili Mosconi has been a publicly traded company since 2023, the same year it became a Benefit Corporation, demonstrating the company’s commitment to corporate ethics and sustainability. Why is going public important? What strategic advantages can it offer? What challenges must be addressed during such a transition?

When we went public in February 2023, our primary goal was to raise the capital needed to carry out the acquisitions we had in the pipeline, thereby completing a strategic plan that began with our first acquisition in 2015 of Stamperia EMME.

Second, being publicly traded means having visibility; therefore—in a market dominated by giants—it conveys a more prestigious image associated with values such as transparency, accountability, stability, reliability, and integrity, all of which are essential for being viewed positively by customers and for competing effectively in today’s highly competitive market.

Our journey to the stock market has been extremely rewarding, and we went public in just 8 months—a very positive outcome, especially given the trends in 2023, when, following a profitable 2022, the first signs of a crisis in the textile sector were already emerging.

Gentili Mosconi is very active in M&A transactions and the acquisition of historic Italian textile companies with the aim of revitalizing them. How important is this strategy for Gentili Mosconi, and what results has it yielded? Are further transactions planned for the coming years?

Gentili Mosconi began as a converter in the 1980s and gradually evolved, over the following decades, into an integrated company capable of managing and overseeing the entire production cycle. Our acquisition strategy has been central to this transformation, enabling us to remain competitive in a market where it is essential to build networks, overcome the fragmentation of production centers, and create synergies among companies.

All of this has been achieved while allowing the acquired companies a high degree of autonomy; they continue to operate not only for the Gentili Mosconi Group but also for third parties, thereby serving our textile districts and other Italian companies in the sector.

We have successfully completed all the acquisitions promised to investors at the time of our IPO, starting with Tintoria Comacina, a long-standing Como-based company founded in 1981, which addressed the need for a dyeing facility within our Group, while continuing—like all our companies—to provide services to third parties.

The acquisition of Manifatture Tessili Bianchi, another major industrial firm in the Como area founded in the early 1980s, was not planned and arose from a spontaneous proposal, which we welcomed both for the synergies created with other Gentili Mosconi companies (in fact, MTB has become a new client of Tintoria Comacina), and because we found it appealing to integrate a high-quality converter led by highly skilled professionals who enthusiastically agreed to a 100% acquisition through a share swap.

Our most recent M&A transaction involved Lanificio Cesare Gatti in Biella, a historic producer of luxury cashmere that we are relaunching through the creation of the newco Cesare Gatti, a company we control.

In the meantime, we have also streamlined and expanded our corporate offices, invested in the textile innovation consulting and services firm “Fili di Innovazione,” and created a new garment manufacturing facility, in this case deeming internal development more advantageous than an acquisition.

Is there still room for further acquisitions?

Certainly, especially since we have only used one-third of the capital raised for this purpose so far. We are in no hurry because we are currently focused on consolidating and fully integrating the various acquired companies, but we are always on the lookout and evaluating potential candidates.

Gentili Mosconi is a pillar of the Como Textile District. How do you view the current situation and future prospects for this center of excellence?

The Como textile district is a historic one, renowned worldwide, but it is currently going through a difficult period of profound change—a situation similar to that being experienced by other major Italian districts such as Biella and Prato.

The world is changing, and what we have referred to over the past three years as the “crisis of the Italian textile industry”—as if it were merely the temporary return of a cyclical phenomenon—is in reality a structural evolution of the sector.

In this context, no one can save themselves alone, and it is necessary to engage in dialogue with partners, customers, and competitors to find solutions and develop advantageous strategies and synergies.

I doubt there will be a return to the so-called “golden age,” but I am certain that the path of synergies and dialogue is the winning strategy for a successful future and to remain competitive.