PARIS — Escada is about to change hands.
Ten years after Megha Mittal, the daughter-in-law of Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, won a bitter bidding war to take over the then-insolvent German fashion house, she is in advanced talks to sell the brand, sources close to the company said.
According to the German trade publication Manager Magazin, the likely buyer is U.S. private equity firm Regent LP, which in September acquired the German online shopping club Brands4Friends from eBay Inc. Regent also owns fashion lingerie business La Senza and cycling accessories brand Mavic.
Officials at Escada did not reply to a request for comment, and representatives of Regent, which is based in Los Angeles, were not immediately reachable.
Escada has been stepping up its public profile of late. Last year, the brand held its first runway show at New York Fashion Week to mark its 40th anniversary and its new direction under global design director Niall Sloan.
More recently, it tapped Rita Ora to be its new brand ambassador. The singer appeared in Escada’s spring campaign and created a capsule collection of all-red pieces that launched earlier this month.
The wife of Aditya Mittal, president and chief financial officer of ArcelorMittal and chief executive officer of ArcelorMittal Europe, Mittal is a Wharton Business School graduate, former Goldman Sachs investment researcher and architectural design postgraduate.
Mittal won out in the final round of bidding for the house against an international consortium supporting Sven Ley, son of Escada founders Wolfgang and Margaretha Ley; his wife, Zoe, and an unconfirmed third party, widely believed to be the Lebanon-based financial holding firm M1 Group.