Prada is a co-chief executive officer of Prada SpA, the Italian luxury-goods company. She has run the Milan-based fashion house since the late 1970s with her husband and co-CEO Patrizio Bertelli. The publicly traded company had revenue of 3.4 billion euros ($4 billion) in 2021. Its labels include Miu Miu, Prada and Church's.
Miuccia Prada's net worth of $5.87B can buy ...
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The majority of Prada's fortune is derived from her 28% stake in Milan-based Prada SpA, the publicly traded Italian fashion company she joined in the late 1970s. She holds her shares through Milan-based Prada Holding, according to the 2021 annual report, published on its website.
The billionaire collected about $675 million selling shares in the company's initial public offering in 2011, and has received more than $300 million of dividends, according to company filings and an analysis of Bloomberg data. The value of her cash investments is based on these proceeds, market performance, insider transactions, taxes and charitable contributions.
Through Stefano Cantino, Prada Group's director of communication, Miuccia Prada declined to comment on her net worth.
Miuccia Prada was born in Milan in 1948, the youngest granddaughter of Mario Prada, who founded the eponymous fashion house in 1913. The company, which started as single store selling trunks, handbags and other leather accessories on Milan's Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, was a big success. After six years, it became an official supplier to the Italian royal family.
The family fashion business was not Miuccia Prada's first professional pursuit. After earning a doctorate in political science from the University of Milan she became a mime, studying under Giorgio Strehler at Milan's Piccolo Teatro. It was not until the late 1970s that she decided to join the family company, helping to run the flagship Milan store. In 1977, she met Patrizio Bertelli, a fashion entrepreneur from Arezzo in Tuscany, who had built a leather-goods company, I Pellettieri d'Italia, I.P.I. Miuccia hired him to be one of Prada's main suppliers. They married in 1987.
As Miuccia's mentor, Bertelli helped her expand the company beyond its original flagship shop and into new products, such as footwear and men's and women's ready-to-wear apparel. Beginning in 1986, Prada opened new stores in New York, Madrid, London, Paris and Tokyo. The couple helped oversee Prada's development into a global luxury powerhouse. The company acquired new labels -- including men's footwear brand Church's -- and also opened its own, including Miuccia's line Miu Miu in 1993.
Prada announced plans to go public on the Hong Kong stock exchange in January 2011, with a target to raise as much as $3 billion. The June IPO ended up raising $2.14 billion after cutting the final share price by almost a fifth due to weak demand from retail investors.
Miuccia, Prada's chairman, lives in Milan with Bertelli, its chief executive, and their two sons, Lorenzo and Guilio.