Leading Belgian lingerie producer Van de Velde is hoping to get investors' knickers in a twist with this week's announcement that 40 per cent of its shares will be floated on the Brussels bourse next month as a prelude to a stepped-up marketing assault in Europe. The family-owned company, which began life as sedate corset maker in 1919, is now in the middle-to-luxury end of the wispy lingerie market with a 25 per cent in Belgium and a 35 per cent share in Germany. Overall the group claims 5 per cent of the European market for ladies' unmentionables, estimated at around £12 billion a year. The group, which clads some impressive figures, can also produce some solid bottom-line statistics of its own with a decade of double-digit growth in turnover and profit.
At a briefing (what else) on the planned flotation this week, a succession of scantily-clad lovelies sashayed down the catwalk, demurely attired in the firm's Marie Jo, Prima Donna and L'Aventura branded undergarments, bringing some solace into the hearts of crusty institutional fund managers, (male, naturally) an agreeable variant on the usual tea and biscuits. The assembled notables were solemnly told that the Marie Jo brand is designed to capture the imagination of women who were "feminine, refined, modern, self-assertive, seductive and optimistic". Prima Donna, as the name might imply, is for those with a figure not dissimilar to the back end of a bus, or in PC lingerie-speak "targeted at the more mature woman ". KB Securities, which is managing the float , describes Van de Velde as offering naughty but nice investment potential - well it would, wouldn't it?
