Amazon said Wednesday it was slashing another 16,000 jobs across the company in an ongoing bid to restructure the sprawling trillion-dollar firm.

‘The reductions we are making today will impact approximately 16,000 roles across Amazon, and we’re again working hard to support everyone whose role is impacted,’ Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience and technology, said in a memo to employees.

‘That starts with offering most US-based employees 90 days to look for a new role internally,’ she said. Amazon will ‘continue hiring and investing in strategic areas and functions that are critical to our future.’

Galetti said the cuts would ‘strengthen our organization by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy.’

In October, Amazon cut 14,000 jobs primarily at the corporate level. At the time, Galetti cited artificial intelligence as being the “most transformative technology we’ve seen since the internet.”

Amazon has 1.55 million employees worldwide, the company said in a filing last year.

It said Tuesday that it would close some of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh physical stores, planning to convert some into Whole Foods Market stores.

While AI was not explicitly cited in Wednesday’s note to Amazon workers, the cuts come as workers nationwide brace for the impact of artificial intelligence in a sluggish labor market.

Companies have started citing ‘efficiency’ as they pursue the implementation of AI.

On Monday, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said that his firm’s headcount would be ‘more constrained in 2026’ as the company sees ‘opportunities for efficiency and we try to deploy those.’

On Tuesday, Pinterest said it would cut 15% of its workforce as it pivoted ‘resources to AI-focused roles and teams that drive AI adoption and execution.’

Last year, Microsoft said it was eliminating 9,000 jobs to improve efficiency. Target also cut 1,800 corporate jobs to reduce ‘complexity.’ Instagram and Facebook owner Meta Platforms also reduced its workforce by around 600 jobs as it shifted toward artificial intelligence.

At the same time, hiring nationwide is slowing and inflation remains elevated.

After three months of contraction last year, the U.S. economy added only 56,000 jobs in November and just 50,000 in December. Meanwhile, inflation remains at 2.7%, well above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%.

President Donald Trump on Thursday filed a $5 billion lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase and its CEO Jamie Dimon, claiming that the bank improperly closed his accounts for political reasons.

‘While we regret President Trump has sued us, we believe the suit has no merit,’ a JPMorgan Chase spokesperson said. ‘We respect the President’s right to sue us and our right to defend ourselves – that’s what courts are for.’

The suit accuses the bank of libel and breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. It also says the bank and its chief executive violated Florida trade practices laws.

The suit says Trump held ‘several’ accounts at the firm which were closed.

On Feb. 19, 2021, shortly after the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot, the bank notified Trump that the accounts would be closed within two months, the suit also says.

The lawsuit adds to a still-growing list of legal efforts from Trump directed at a wide variety of institutions — from media outlets to tech platforms — many of which have resulted in multimillion-dollar settlements. The president’s company, the Trump Organization, sued Capital One Bank last year over allegations of improper account closures. Capital One said at the time that the allegations have no merit.

Dimon, as head of JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, is among the most influential people in the business world and someone who has been courted for years by Republicans and Democrats. In the run-up to the 2024 election, Trump falsely claimed that Dimon had endorsed him.

Dimon has at times been critical of some Trump policies — most notably inflation — while supportive of others, including efforts to streamline the U.S. government.

On Wednesday, Dimon criticized the Trump administration over its immigration policies.

‘I don’t like what I’m seeing,’ Dimon told attendees at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Dimon also said that while he doesn’t agree with everything the administration does, he does agree with some of its economic policies.

On Saturday, Trump threatened the lawsuit in a Truth Social post. Over the weekend, JPMorgan Chase said it appreciated ‘that this administration has moved to address political debanking and we support those efforts.’

Almost exactly one year ago, Trump used an address at the World Economic Forum to take a shot at JPMorgan and its competitor, Bank of America.

‘I hope you start opening your bank to conservatives because many conservatives complain that the banks are not allowing them to do business,’ Trump said.

“You and Jamie and everybody, I hope you’re going to open your banks to conservatives because what you’re doing is wrong,” Trump said.

Bank of America said that it serves over 70 million consumers and does not close accounts for political reasons. JPMorgan says that it also serves tens of millions of accounts and likewise does not close accounts on political grounds.

In an expletive-laden interview with CNBC last year, Trump vented his frustrations at big banks that close accounts for legal and regulatory reasons.

‘I had JPMorgan Chase — I had hundreds of millions of dollars in cash,’ Trump told the cable network on Aug. 5. ‘I was loaded up with cash, and they told me, ‘I’m sorry, sir, we can’t have you.”

Trump says he was informed he had 20 days to move his assets out of the bank. ‘I said, ‘You got to be kidding. I’ve been with you for 35, 40 years,” the president recounted.

Trump said, ‘then what happens is I call a Bank of America.’

‘And they have zero interest,’ he said. CEO Brian Moynihan ‘was kissing my a– when I was president, and when I called him after I was president to deposit a billion dollars plus and a lot of other things … and he said, ‘we can’t do it.”

The JPMorgan Chase spokesperson said Thursday that the bank ‘does not not close accounts for political or religious reasons. We do close accounts because they create legal or regulatory risk for the company.’

Trump was indicted multiple times after his first term in office. In 2024, he was indicted on charges that he conspired to defraud the United States, conspiracy to to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.

In recent years, banks have faced intense pressure from conservatives leveling ‘debanking’ claims against them. However, banks and their lobbying groups have long maintained that they do not close accounts for political or religious reasons, but they close accounts based primarily on legal or regulatory grounds.

Trump’s administration has sought to ease those regulations in order to make it harder for a bank to close a customer’s account. In August, Trump signed an executive order which sought to end ‘politicized or unlawful debanking activities.’

In September, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, one of the top banking regulators, began a review of banking rules to ‘depoliticize the banking system.’

ROME — Italian fashion designer Valentino Garavani has died, his foundation said Monday.

Usually known only by his first name, Valentino was 93, and had retired in 2008.

Founder of the eponymous brand, Valentino scaled the heights of haute couture, created a business empire and introduced a new color to the fashion world, the ‘Valentino Red.’

‘Valentino Garavani passed away today at his Roman residence, surrounded by his loved ones,’ the foundation said on Instagram.

He will lie in state Wednesday and Thursday, while the funeral will take place in Rome on Friday, it added.

Valentino was ranked alongside Giorgio Armani and Karl Lagerfeld as the last of the great designers from an era before fashion became a global, highly commercial industry run as much by accountants and marketing executives as the couturiers.

Lagerfeld died in 2019, while Armani died in September.

Valentino was adored by generations of royals, first ladies and movie stars, from Jackie Kennedy Onassis to Julia Roberts and Queen Rania of Jordan, who swore the designer always made them look and feel their best.

“I know what women want,” he once remarked. “They want to be beautiful.”

Never one for edginess or statement dressing, Valentino made precious few fashion faux-pas throughout his nearly half-century-long career, which stretched from his early days in Rome in the 1960s through to his retirement in 2008.

His fail-safe designs made Valentino the king of the red carpet, the go-to man for A-listers’ awards ceremony needs.

His sumptuous gowns have graced countless Academy Awards, notably in 2001, when Roberts wore a vintage black and white column to accept her best actress statue. Cate Blanchett also wore Valentino — a one-shouldered number in butter-yellow silk — when she won the Oscar for best supporting actress in 2004.

Valentino was also behind the long-sleeved lace dress Jacqueline Kennedy wore for her wedding to Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis in 1968. Kennedy and Valentino were close friends for decades, and for a spell, the one-time U.S. first lady wore almost exclusively Valentino.

He was also close to Diana, Princess of Wales, who often donned his sumptuous gowns.

Beyond his signature orange-tinged shade of red, other Valentino trademarks included bows, ruffles, lace and embroidery; in short, feminine, flirty embellishments that added to the dresses’ beauty and hence to that of the wearers.

Perpetually tanned and always impeccably dressed, Valentino shared the lifestyle of his jet-set patrons. In addition to his 152-foot yacht and an art collection including works by Picasso and Miro, the couturier owned a 17th-century chateau near Paris with a garden said to boast more than a million roses.

The company that owns the iconic luxury retailer Saks Fifth Avenue filed for bankruptcy late Tuesday.

The move comes after Saks Global struggled with debt it took on to buy rival Neiman Marcus, lagging department store sales and a rising online market.

It’s one of the largest retail collapses since the Covid pandemic, and casts further doubt over the future of luxury fashion.

The retailer, which also owns Bergdorf Goodman, said early Wednesday its stores would remain open for now after it finalized a $1.75 billion financing package and appointed a new CEO.

The court process is meant to give the luxury retailer room to negotiate a debt restructuring with creditors or sell itself to a new owner to stave off liquidation. Failing that, the company may be forced to shutter.

Former Neiman Marcus CEO Geoffroy van Raemdonck will replace Richard Baker, who was the architect of the acquisition strategy that left Saks Global saddled with debt.

The company also appointed former Neiman Marcus executives Darcy Penick and Lana Todorovich as chief commercial officer and chief of global brand partnerships at Saks Global, respectively.

Saks Fifth Avenue, the retail arm of Saks Global, listed $1 billion to $10 billion in assets and liabilities, according to court documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston.

A retailer long loved by the rich and famous, from Gary Cooper to Grace Kelly, Saks fell on hard times after the pandemic, as competition from online outlets rose, and brands started more frequently selling items through their own stores.

The original Saks Fifth Avenue store, known for displaying the likes of Chanel, Cucinelli and Burberry, was opened by retail pioneer Andrew Saks in 1867.

The new financing deal would provide an immediate cash infusion of $1 billion through ‌a loan from an investor group, Saks Global said.

A host of luxury brands were among the unsecured creditors, led by Chanel and Gucci owner Kering at about $136 million and $60 million respectively, the court filing said. The world’s biggest luxury conglomerate, LVMH, was listed as an unsecured creditor at $26 million. In total, Saks Global estimated there were between 10,001 and 25,000 creditors.

In 2024, Baker had masterminded the takeover of Neiman Marcus by Canada’s Hudson’s Bay Co, which had owned Saks since 2013, and later spun off the U.S. luxury assets to create Saks Global, bringing together three names that have defined American high fashion for more than a century.

The deal was designed to create a luxury powerhouse, but it saddled Saks Global with debt at a time when global luxury sales were slowing, complicating an already difficult turnaround for CEO and veteran executive Marc Metrick.

Saks Global struggled last year to pay vendors, who began withholding inventory, disrupting the company’s supply chain and leaving it with insufficient stock.

The thinly stocked shelves may have driven shoppers away to rivals like Bloomingdale’s, which posted strong sales in 2025, compounding pressure on Saks Global.

“Rich people are still buying,” Morningstar analyst David Swartz said last month, “just not so much at Saks.”

Running out of cash, Saks Global last month sold the real estate of the Neiman Marcus Beverly Hills flagship store for an undisclosed amount. It had also been looking to sell a minority stake in exclusive department store Bergdorf Goodman to help cut debt.

On Dec. 30, it failed to make an interest payment of more than $100 million to bondholders.

Warner Bros. Discovery on Wednesday rejected Paramount Skydance’s amended takeover offer, the latest in a series of rejections in David Ellison’s pursuit of the streaming and cable giant.

The media company said it remains committed to the $82.7 billion deal it reached in December to sell its streaming service, studio and HBO cable channel to Netflix.

‘The Board unanimously determined that the Paramount’s latest offer remains inferior to our merger agreement with Netflix across multiple key areas,’ Warner Bros. Discovery Chairman Samuel Di Piazza said in a statement.

‘Paramount’s offer continues to provide insufficient value,’ he continued.

In a letter to shareholders, Di Piazza wrote that Paramount Skydance’s offer carries ‘significant costs, risks and uncertainties as compared to the Netflix merger.’ The way the Paramount deal is structured creates a ‘lack of certainty’ about its finalization, he added.

Di Piazza adds in the letter that if the company were to agree to the Paramount merger and it failed to close, it would result in a ‘potentially considerable value destruction.’

‘What matters most right now is our focus as we start the year,’ Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said in a memo to employees seen by NBC News. ‘Our operating plans remain unchanged, and our priorities for 2026 are clear and intentional.’

Zaslav wrote that the ‘review was conducted with discipline and rigor, and was supported by independent financial and legal advisors.’

On Dec. 22, Paramount Skydance increased its offer for Warner Bros. Discovery with a personal guarantee from billionaire Larry Ellison, who was backing the financing for the deal. His son, David Ellison, is the CEO of Paramount Skydance.

However, that was not enough for Warner Bros. Discovery. That beefed-up offer followed Warner Bros. Discovery’s Dec. 17 public rejection of Paramount. It also preceded multiple private rejections before Paramount Skydance went public.

In a statement Thursday, Paramount said it remained committed to the offer that WBD has rejected twice. “WBD continues to raise issues in Paramount’s offer that we have already addressed, including flexibility in interim operations,” Paramount said.

At stake is the future of one of the most storied media empires in the United States.

The bidding by Paramount also comes amid a monumental shift in the media and streaming landscape at large. On Monday, Versant Media, the cable network spinoff from Comcast, began trading as an independent company. Shares have plunged more than 20% over the course of those two days. (Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and NBC News.)

On CNBC, Di Piazza said it would be a mistake to compare Warner Bros. Discovery‘s cable networks to Versant. ‘Discovery Global is different, it has a lot more scale,’ he said.

Streaming companies such as Apple, Netflix and Amazon are also challenging traditional broadcasters such as Paramount-owned CBS for sports rights.

Warner Bros. Discovery controls properties ranging from CNN Worldwide and the Discovery Channel to HBO, as well as the Warner Bros. film studio and archive.

Despite the back and forth between Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount, Netflix has so far proceeded with the deal it inked Dec. 5, under which the world’s largest streaming company would acquire a stake in WBD.

Warner’s cable networks would be spun out into a separate company as part of that deal. However, Paramount Skydance wants to buy everything Warner Bros. Discovery owns.

Paramount’s controlling shareholders, the Ellisons, have suggested they could obtain regulatory clearance more quickly and easily than Netflix.

In mid-2025, the Ellisons acquired Paramount with approval from the Trump administration. But that approval only came after CBS News agreed to pay $16 million to President Donald Trump’s future presidential library over an interview that “60 Minutes” had conducted with then-presidential candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Netflix, for its part, has met with Trump at the White House over the deal. But Trump has said either bidder poses potential problems, in his view.

Netflix said in a statement that it ‘welcomed the Warner Bros. Discovery board of directors’ continued commitment to the merger agreement’ the two companies reached last year. ‘Netflix and Warner Bros. will bring together highly complementary strengths and a shared passion for storytelling,’ Netflix’s co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters said.

Di Piazza said on CNBC that the difference between Paramount’s offer and that of Netflix is that Warner Bros. and Netflix already ‘have a signed merger agreement’ that has ‘a clear path to closing.’ Di Piazza also said the Netflix deal offers ‘protections for our shareholders, if something stops the close, whatever that might be.’

Trump has said he will be personally involved in reviewing whichever merger proceeds.

Paramount did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump Media & Technology will merge with a fusion power company in an all-stock deal that the companies said Thursday is valued at more than $6 billion.

Devin Nunes, the Republican congressman who resigned in 2021 to become the CEO of Trump Media, will be co-CEO of the new company with TAE Technologies CEO Michl Binderbauer.

Shares of Trump Media & Technology, the parent company of President Donald Trump’s Truth Social media platform, have tumbled 70% this year but jumped 20% before the opening bell Thursday.

TAE is a private company and the merger with Trump Media would create one of the first publicly traded nuclear fusion companies.

“We’re taking a big step forward toward a revolutionary technology that will cement America’s global energy dominance for generations,” Nunes said in a prepared statement.

TAE focuses on nuclear fusion, a technology that combines two light atomic nuclei to form a single heavier one. It releases enormous amount of energy, a process that occurs on the sun and other stars, according to the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency.

TAE and Trump Media shareholders will each own approximately 50% of the combined company.

The companies say the transaction values each TAE common stock at $53.89 per share.

At closing, Trump Media & Technology Group will be the holding company for Truth Social and TAE, along with its subsidiaries TAE Power Solutions and TAE Life Sciences.

Apple’s top artificial intelligence executive is stepping down and will retire in 2026, the company announced Monday.

John Giannandrea had been at Apple since 2018, where his official title was senior vice president for machine learning and AI strategy.

He will be replaced by Amar Subramanya, who comes to Apple after a brief stint as corporate vice president of AI at Microsoft and more than a decade at Google.

Subramanya will report to one of CEO Tim Cook’s deputies, Craig Federighi, rather than to Cook directly, as Giannandrea had.

‘AI has long been central to Apple’s strategy, and we are pleased to welcome Amar to Craig’s leadership team and to bring his extraordinary AI expertise to Apple,’ Cook said Monday.

The abrupt change at a company known for its careful succession planning highlights Apple’s challenge as it tries to compete with top AI developers such as Google, ChatGPT owner OpenAI, Meta and Microsoft.

Earlier this year, Apple delayed the release of an upgraded version of Siri with AI powered features. At the time, it said it was going to ‘take us longer than we thought’ to develop the new version.

The company said it anticipated rolling out new features ‘in the coming year,’ but it has not offered any more specifics.

‘We’re making good progress on it, and, as we’ve shared, we expect to release it next year,’ Cook said on the company’s quarterly earnings call in late October.

“With Apple Intelligence, we’ve introduced dozens of new features that are powerful, intuitive, private and deeply integrated into the things people do every day,” Cook said on the Oct. 30 call

The company is targeting the spring to release the upgraded Siri, Bloomberg News recently reported.

While Apple’s iOS and macOS are integrated with ChatGPT, those features are somewhat limited.

In recent weeks, Apple has reportedly neared deals to integrate with Google’s Gemini, as well as AI models from Perplexity and Anthropic.

Apple’s stock has also felt the effect of what some perceive to be its lagging AI services.

This year, Apple shares have returned 13%, which tops both Amazon and Microsoft. But shares of Oracle have popped 20%, Nvidia has surged 34%, and Google parent company Alphabet has soared 65%.

Still, Apple remains the world’s second-largest publicly traded company, with a market value of $4.2 trillion, behind only Nvidia.

Overall, the S&P 500 has risen almost 16% this year.

Tech billionaires Michael and Susan Dell announced Tuesday that they are pledging $6.25 billion to create some 25 million additional ‘Trump Accounts’ for children across the country.

These accounts will be seeded with $250 each, and available for children who missed the eligibility cutoff for the $1,000 federally funded ‘Trump Accounts’ for babies born after Jan. 1, 2025.

Children living in ZIP codes with median incomes below $150,000 will be the first to receive the funds, the White House said.

‘The greatest investment that we could possibly make is in children,’ Susan Dell said alongside President Donald Trump at the White House.

‘It’s really an amazing moment that two people would do that kind of a contribution,’ Trump said.

The president said he was also talking to other wealthy donors and friends to potentially make similar contributions.

Asked how this donation came to be, Michael Dell said: ‘We started talking about Texas only at the beginning. And then we thought about it some more, and we went back and forth, as we do on these things, and this is where we ended up.’

The Dells said they considered making the pledge for a long time. But they said they didn’t want the pledge to be the end of their involvement.

Michael Dell encouraged states to ‘really grow financial literacy’ to help educate families about how the accounts and markets work.

‘These deposits will reach the accounts of most children age 10 and under who were born prior to the qualifying date for the federal newborn contribution,’ the Dells said in a statement issued by their foundation.

‘Children older than 10 may benefit, too, if funds remain available after initial sign-ups,’ the Dell family said. ‘It is an incredibly practical and direct step to help families begin saving today.’

The Dells say they ‘believe this effort will expand opportunity, strengthen communities, and help more children take ownership of their future.’

The Dell family gift “is expected to reach nearly 80% of children age 10 and under across 75% of U.S. zip codes,” according to the nonprofit Invest America.

Children born after Jan. 1 and until Dec. 31, 2028, will receive an account infused with a $1,000 investment from the U.S. Treasury, as part of the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill.

The accounts will open and begin accepting contributions starting on July 4, 2026. The accounts will initially be held by a financial firm designated by the Treasury Department, but later will be able to be transferred to any brokerage firm.

Those accounts will also be eligible for additional contributions of up to $5,000 per year until the beneficiary child reaches age 18. Withdrawals from the accounts are not permitted until the children reach that age.

Trump accounts can be invested only in low-cost index funds or ETFs that either mirror the S&P 500 or ‘another American stock index,’ according to the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

‘These investment accounts are simple, secure, and structured to grow in value through market returns over time,’ the Dell family said.

‘Trump Accounts represent a potentially valuable tool for building up savings and tapping the power of compound growth for the young,’ Charles Schwab tax planning director Hayden Adams recently wrote.

If a family could contribute and invest the maximum $5,000 per year in the accounts, and with a reasonable growth rate of about 6%, ‘by age 18, the child’s account would hold around $191,000 in assets.’

Once a child turns 18, the accounts are eligible to be converted to a traditional individual retirement account, ‘meaning it could continue to accumulate potential gains on a tax-free basis’ for many years.

The Dells are one of the wealthiest families in America, with a fortune of nearly $150 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaires. The family’s primary source of wealth is Dell Technologies, the company founded by Michael Dell in 1984.

In recent years, the value of Dell shares have been fueled by the booming AI revolution, for which Dell is a supplier of servers and other technology.

Starbucks will pay about $35 million to more than 15,000 New York City workers to settle claims it denied them stable schedules and arbitrarily cut their hours, city officials announced Monday.

The company will also pay $3.4 million in civil penalties under the agreement with the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. It also agrees to comply with the city’s Fair Workweek law going forward.

A company spokeswoman said Starbucks is committed to operating responsibly and in compliance with all applicable local laws and regulations in every market where it does business, but also noted the complexities of the city’s law.

“This (law) is notoriously challenging to manage and this isn’t just a Starbucks issue, nearly every retailer in the city faces these roadblocks,” spokeswoman Jaci Anderson said.

Most of the affected employees who held hourly positions will receive $50 for each week worked from July 2021 through July 2024, the department said. Workers who experienced a violation after that may be eligible for compensation by filing a complaint with the department.

The $38.9 million settlement also guarantees employees laid off during recent store closings in the city will get the chance for reinstatement at other company locations.

The city began investigating in 2022 after receiving dozens of worker complaints against several Starbucks locations, and eventually expanded its investigation to the hundreds of stores in the city. The probe found most Starbucks employees never got regular schedules and the company routinely reduced employees’ hours by more than 15%, making it difficult for staffers to know their regular weekly earnings and plan other commitments, such as child care, education or other jobs.

The company also routinely denied workers the chance to pick up extra shifts, leaving them involuntarily in part-time status, according to the city.

The agreement with New York comes as Starbucks’ union continues a nationwide strike at dozens of locations that began last month. The number of affected stores and the strike’s impact remain in dispute by the two sides.

MILAN — The Prada Group announced Tuesday that it has officially purchased Milan fashion rival Versace in a 1.25 billion euro (nearly $1.4 billion) deal that puts the fashion house known for its sexy silhouettes under the same roof as Prada’s “ugly chic” aesthetic and Miu Miu’s youth-driven appeal.

The highly anticipated deal is expected to relaunch Versace’s fortunes, after middling post-pandemic performance as part of the U.S. luxury group Capri Holdings.

Prada said in a one-line statement that the acquisition had been completed after receiving all regulatory clearances.

Prada heir Lorenzo Bertelli will steer Versace’s next phase as executive chairman, in addition to his roles as group marketing director and sustainability chief.

The son of co-creative director Miuccia Prada and longtime Prada Group chairman Patrizio Bertelli has said he doesn’t expect to make any swift executive changes at Versace. But Bertelli has said that the company, which places among the top 10 most recognized brands in the world, has long been underperforming in the market.

Prada has underlined that the 47-year-old Versace brand offered “significant untapped growth potential.’’

Versace has been in the midst of a creative relaunch under a new designer, Dario Vitale, who previewed his first collection during Milan Fashion Week in September. He had previously been head of design at Miu Miu, but his move to Versace was unrelated to the Prada deal, executives have said.

Capri Holdings, which owns Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo, paid $2 billion for Versace in 2018, but had been struggling to position Versace’s bold profile in the recent era of “quiet luxury.″

Versace represented 20% of Capri Holdings 2024 revenue of 5.2 billion euros. An analyst presentation for the Prada deal said that Versace would represent 13% of the Prada Group’s pro-forma revenues, with Miu Miu coming in at 22% and Prada at 64%. The Prada Group, which also includes Church’s footwear, reported a 17% boost in revenues to 5.4 billion euros last year.

The Prada Group has already begun preparations to incorporate crosstown rival Versace into its Italian manufacturing system, a point of pride for the group.

“Making a bag for one brand or another, the know-how is the same,″ Bertelli told reporters last week at the group’s Scandicci leather goods factory, which already makes bags for the Prada and Miu Miu brands and will soon add Versace.

The Prada Group’s has invested 60 million euros in its supply chain this year, including a new leather goods factory near Siena, a new knitwear factory near Perugia as well as increasing production at its factory Church’s footwear factory in Britain and expanding another Tuscan factory. That’s on top of 200 million euros in investments from 2019-24.

Prada’s efforts include an academy that has trained some 570 new artisans over the last 25 years in an in-house training academy operating in the Tuscany, Marche, Veneto and Umbria regions.

Last year, Prada hired 70% of the 120 artisans who trained in the academy. The number of trainees rose by 28% to 152 this year.