Acting through its holding company, Edizione Holding, the Benetton family is proposing to take Benetton Group private by offering €276.6 million, or €4.60 a share for the 32.92 percent stake it doesn't own. The price represents a premium of 15 percent above the stock market quotation of €3.98 on the day prior to the announcement. It is 44.6 percent higher than the weighted average of last month and 6 percent higher than the average over the past 12 months. The family indicates that it wants to change to swith to a medium- to long-term strategy to react to raw material price increases and other factors that are squeezing its margins. It doesn't exclude mergers or other transactions in the near future, but denies a possible alliance with Inditex. The final results for 2011 have not come out yet, but preliminary estimates point to a net profit of just over €70 million for last year. The operating margin probably declined to 7.5 percent on stable revenues of €2.03 billion.

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