PRADA GOES PUBLIC?

Prada SpA, the Italian fashion label that makes Miu Miu bags and Church's shoes, hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Intesa Sanpaolo SpA and UniCredit SpA to arrange an initial public offering planned for next year.


PRADA Womens footwear. Available at YOOX.COM


The proposed listing will depend on ``market conditions,'' the Milan-based company said in an e-mailed statement today. Law firm Bonelli Erede Pappalardo will act as legal adviser.

An IPO may value Prada at about 5 billion euros ($7.2 billion) and would be the biggest in the luxury goods industry, a person familiar with the plan said last month. Prada, which has scrapped three listing attempts this decade, is focusing on Miu Miu, Church's and its namesake brand after selling the unprofitable Jil Sander and Helmut Lang labels. Read more

The 12 days of Christmas

Back in 1984, as a lark, PNC created the “Christmas Price Index,” which took “The Twelve Days of Christmas” song and calculated the amount it would cost someone to purchase the items for their True Loves.

As it turns out, the Christmas Price Index frequently mirrors that other, more famous CPI, the Consumer Price Index.

This year if you wish to buy your True Love the items in the song, it will cost $19,501, up 3% over last year and in line with the overall increase in the CPI of 3.5%.

Among the items driving up the index:
• Gold Rings are up 21.5%

• Geese are up 20%

• And, because of the increase in the federal minimum wage, milkmaid labor costs have increased 13.6%

All kidding aside, PNC’s Christmas Price Index is an excellent way to see how much inflation – even in small annual increments – can erode purchasing power over time. When the index began, buying your True Love the goods and services from “The Twelve Days of Christmas” would have cost $12,371.

Women helping Women - Empowerment Funds

As I sit at my desk and try to think of the number of women in business and those running million dollar businesses, I get stumped.
I wonder at the number of women out there who are brilliant, have brilliant minds but somehow are stuck. I have cinsistently toyed with the idea of setting up a womens fund and have women contrubute to women all over the world, who share a passion and a mind for business. Like a scholarship fund.
My initiative would be aimed at women who can give at the million-dollar level and above but every gift at every level is important.
The hope is to create greater commitment to women and girls and every gift matters. Also, we do want to start getting used to thinking about the word "million." Some women can write a million dollar check, but five hundred women can each write a $200 check.
We can pool our resources! Women all across the socio-economic spectrum are uniting their dollars in women's funds. We are amplifying each other's impact and leveraging each other dollars. But let's all raise our thinking!
We have a chance to create a contagion of meaningful gifts for women and girls. Whatever your level of giving, fund women first. In doing so, we're making history.

Women's funds bring me hope. It is bringing to the foreground a greater chance for peace on earth and the prosperity of all. As donors and activists come together to make funding decision, we sharpen our thinking and our solutions have greater impact. Instead of programs that keep people in a perpetual victim cycle, I see programs being developed that are breaking the cycle of poverty.
Funding women first and raising the bar on our giving makes it all possible.