Those who were at the beginning of Pronovias’ success story remember the ambition of Alberto Palatchi, who in the sixties began to lead the bridal fashion company he had inherited from the lace and embroidery shop his father founded in 1922 with the name El Suizo. “I want the lady of the house to marry with the same brand that the maid marries with,” he used to say. He achieved it, and with flying colors. Pronovias became a giant that came to hold 50% of the market share in Spain. At its peak, it invoiced around 150 million, with high margins that allowed it to convert a third of those revenues into profits. After turning the company into an international benchmark, in 2017 Palatchi sold Pronovias to a private equity fund for 550 million euros. Since then, the company has gone through its particular via crucis, an accumulation of problems that has led it to its current situation: these days a court is analyzing the value of the company, on the verge of bankruptcy proceedings, to decide who gets the remains. Desigual and the Enduring fund have submitted offers, but the fit Pronovias might have in any scenario is an unknown.
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The sale of Pronovias once again tests the resilience of the Catalan business class. Pronovias is one of the icons of the Catalan bourgeoisie in the 20th century, one of many companies that knew how to catch the market winds, opted to sell abroad, and gave Catalan textiles a second life of prestige when the mythical factories of the Llobregat river, which had spearheaded the particular Catalan industrial revolution, had long since moved to other countries with cheaper labor. It is also one of the icons of entrepreneurship, built on the history of the Palatchi family, a Sephardic Jewish family of Turkish origin, who arrived in Barcelona after World War I, and built a world-class company from scratch.
For this reason, among the two candidates to rescue Pronovias, the Generalitat and the business world prefer Desigual, although few understand what motivation Desigual might have to buy. Faced with Pronovias’ decline, the Catalan Administration moved to have another Catalan company or one with a significant presence in Barcelona save the company, and after trying, unsuccessfully, with Mango and Tendam (formerly Cortefiel), it has been Desigual that has stepped forward. This company is also one of the icons of Catalan textiles with an international vocation —it was founded in 1984 in the Raval neighborhood, and is now present in 107 countries—, and also boasts the entrepreneurial aura of its enigmatic Swiss-born founder, Thomas Meyer, who, starting from the design of a denim jacket, became one of the richest people in Spain.
The court has on the table Desigual’s proposal and also that of Enduring, an American investment fund. Desigual is the Catalan and industrial option, while the arrival of Enduring would mean adding a new fund to the history of failed experiences with the funds that have managed Pronovias since Palatchi sold the company to BC Partners.
The failure of the funds
BC Partners suffered the consequences of the pandemic and the cancellation of weddings, but the drop in revenues, losses, and the increase in debt that Pronovias experienced in those years are not solely explained by COVID. The company, under the leadership of CEO Amandine Ohayon, carried out a strategy of company acquisitions, fragmentation of the company’s international structure, and alliances with designers, which over time proved to be misguided.
The situation became so precarious that, in 2022, creditor funds Bain and MV Credit took over the company in exchange for a reduction of the debt incurred by the previous owner. The new CEO, Marc Calabia, came from Springfield, and despite the new strategic plan, the new ownership failed to turn the situation around. According to sources familiar with the entire process, it even worsened, with a deterioration of the relationship with wholesalers, and poor commercial management. Calabia left in July 2025, and was replaced by a more financially-oriented executive, Cristina Alba, who, despite trying to fully immerse herself in the business, encountered the funds’ impediment to inject more money, as they had already contributed over 135 million without seeing a return.
Pronovias’ 2025 results, which has a large headquarters in El Prat de Llobregat, show this decline: the company invoiced 88 million euros, 15% less than the previous year, and obtained a negative gross operating profit of nine million (compared to a positive five million in 2024). However, according to the same sources, the funds have worked to clean up the company from a debt that reached 131 million in 2023. Nevertheless, the company still needs a capital injection of around 20 million euros.
Given these circumstances, the owners decided to present the bankruptcy prepack, a step prior to bankruptcy proceedings, and the offers the judge has on the table are very similar to the plan presented in the prepack. This involves divesting from companies acquired in recent years, rebuilding structures with wholesalers, and cutting jobs: of the 600 employees Pronovias has —between its headquarters and its commercial and sales point networks, a workforce that already underwent a collective redundancy in 2024—, both Desigual and Enduring expect to keep around 400, according to several consulted sources.
The future of Pronovias
Palatchi’s return is completely ruled out, and his son has already founded his own brand. The matter is between Desigual and Enduring. The judge will make the decision this April, and it will depend on the price of the offers, the staff reduction and sales point program foreseen by each proposal, among other aspects. Beyond this, the difficulty of the operation lies especially in the fit Pronovias might have in the current bridal fashion market, as well as in the company that ultimately acquires it. Firstly, due to Pronovias’ growth prospects in the current bridal market: this company has based its growth on buying relatively cheap dresses from wholesalers, especially Asian ones, to sell them personalized and with a good margin in its more than 120 stores and 4,000 points of sale worldwide, under a prestigious brand that managed to consolidate a very fragmented market. According to sector sources, especially after the pandemic, this market is now very fragmented again: brides prefer to marry in dresses from designers and small houses with personality, and a giant like Pronovias has little room to grow.
Secondly, if the buyer is Desigual, the challenge is to fit a business as specific and complex as wedding dresses into another, that of prêt-à-porter, which does not have the same logic, even if they are part of the same world. Wedding dresses require personalized and exquisite treatment (“a bride, in principle, is a client who will not repeat, but will recommend,” sector sources recall), a alterations team, and very specific supply chains.
Despite these difficulties, Desigual can leverage a very iconic brand and turn it around in the same way it has turned around its own brand and all its stores, which have been renovated in recent years, while also taking advantage of its current recovery: after several years of declining sales, Thomas Meyer’s company has returned to profitability, with 313,000 euros in profits in 2024 and a turnover of 332 million euros. The Barcelona-based company can also take advantage of existing synergies between both companies: Calabia himself joined Desigual as product director, and several marketing positions also moved from Pronovias to Desigual. Both companies even share the same communication agency. While some believe Pronovias is “a walking corpse with no solution” and others don’t understand why Desigual would get involved with a company with this history, others believe it is an opportunity that should be seized.
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