French crystal manufacturer Baccarat is not about to be put up for sale, its controlling shareholder pledged 9/01/07. Barry Sternlicht, Chairman & CEO of Starwood Capital, said he aimed instead to emulate the success of a much larger luxury product maker such as Hermes. However, the attempt by Starwood to give the Baccarat board power to issue shares to new investors in order to fund the expansion was defeated at a shareholder meeting in Paris 9 Jan. Baccarat employs over 800 people. In 2005 it had sales of 130M Euros, however, its net profit fell 14% to 3M Euros. Sternlicht said Baccarat's economc performance had to improve. He told invstors he wanted the company to expand in fast growing luxury markets such as Russia & India, while further diversifying product lines.
