Former Gucci CEO Bizzarri sets up investment company

MILAN (Reuters) - Former Gucci executive Marco Bizzarri has set up a new investment company after recently leaving the Kering-owned brand, documents seen by Reuters on Tuesday showed.

After taking the helm at Gucci in 2015, he went on to appoint Alessandro Michele as the label's chief designer and helped the Florentine house's sales more than double to reach 9.6 billion euros ($10 billion) in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Bizzarri left Gucci last September a few months after Michele's departure as Kering battles slowing revenue at its former profit engine.

Bizzarri's new company Nessifashion, set up in Rome in February, aims to invest in other companies and offer strategic advice to those companies, among other possible goals, the documents filed with the Italian Chamber of Commerce showed.

Contacted by Reuters, Bizzarri declined to comment.

He is the sole administrator of Nessifashion and holds it through his Nessi SRL, a holding company which already owns stakes in real estate companies and restaurants.

($1 = 0.9289 euros)

(Reporting by Elisa Anzolin; Editing by Valentina Za and Susan Fenton)