Prada set an indicative price range of HK$36.5 ($4.69) to HK$48 ($6.17) a share for the IPO, a source with direct knowledge of the plans told Reuters on Monday, valuing the company at between $11.4 billion and $14.6 billion.
Prada, which started meeting investors in Singapore to gauge appetite for the deal, is the first Italian company to float in Hong Kong as it seeks to tap a booming Asian consumer market that accounted for 40 percent of the group's 2 billion euro sales in 2010.
After scrapping several attempts to list its shares in the past, Prada is offering 16.5 percent of its enlarged capital, or 423.3 million shares -- valuing the IPO at up to $2.6 billion.
At the top end of the range, the IPO is being priced at 27 times projected 2011 earnings, higher than the average of European top luxury groups such as Tod's (TOD.MI), Burberry (BRBY.L), and LVMH (LVMH.PA).
Prada could not be reached for comment.
A successful IPO -- designed to cut Prada's debt of around 1 billion euros and fund further expansion in Asia -- would make Prada one of the most valuable luxury goods groups, but some fund managers balked at the price range.
"Twenty-plus times PE looks expensive," said Peter Elston, strategist at Aberdeen Asset Management Asia.
"But luxury goods companies such as Prada have got good, visible top-line growth for the next 20 years. There are high barriers to entry as you can't go out and create a luxury brand from nothing."
In Singapore, about 60 investors and fund managers attended a lunchtime presentation by Prada's Chief Executive Patrizio Bertelli on Monday. Some expressed concerns about the pricing.
"There's no reason for it to trade higher than LVMH, which has a more diversified portfolio. Prada may be banking on the China story, but all the other luxury brands are also going into China and it's going to be very competitive and tough there," said one manager of a Singapore-based fund, who declined to be identified.
However, Prada may take heart from upscale clothing maker Moncler's decision, also announced on Monday, to drop plans for its own IPO in Milan after it sold a stake to investment firm Eurazeo.
Some investors had said that competition from a Moncler flotation, together with the upcoming listing of luxury shoemaker Ferragamo, could have dented investor appetite for Prada's offering.
Prada, 95 percent owned by the families of Chief Executive Bertelli and his fashion designer wife Miuccia Prada, is betting on a boom in the consumption of luxury items in China, the world's second-largest economy, to lure investors to the IPO.
China will account for 20 percent of the global luxury market by 2015, consulting firm McKinsey & Co says.
The IPO is slated to be priced on June 17 and the shares will start trading in Hong Kong on June 24 under the symbol "1913," the year the company was founded in Milan.
The 423.3 million shares are being sold by Prada and shareholders Prada Holding BV and Intesa Sanpaolo (ISP.MI).
About 14 percent of the shares will be sold in a primary offering with proceeds going to Prada, with the remainder of proceeds going to Prada Holding and Intesa Sanpaolo.
HIGHER VALUATION
A projected price-to-earnings ratio of 27 times compares with an average P/E of 26.2 times for Hong Kong-listed luxury goods companies such as luxury menswear operator Trinity Ltd (0891.HK) and French skincare products retailer L'Occitane (0973.HK), Goldman Sachs Research estimates.
British luxury goods group Burberry (BRBY.L), which was reported in the media to be seeking a Hong Kong listing, trades at 21.4 times forecast 2011 earnings, while LVMH trades at 17.3 times.
Prada's IPO comes as a rout in commodity prices and debt concerns in the euro zone have eroded investor risk appetite, pushing global markets off their multi-year highs in early May.
On Sunday, startup miner Resourcehouse Ltd abandoned its fourth attempt to go public in Hong Kong.
GROWTH COMPANY
Prada started its business in 1913, when Mario Prada began selling leather bags, trunks and silverware to the European elite from his store in Milan's Galleria Vittorio Emanuele.
The company has since expanded throughout Europe, the United States and Asia to include mobile phones, perfumes and eyewear.
Profit more than doubled in the year ended January 2011 to 235.6 million euros. Prada said in a Hong Kong filing on Friday it expected half-year profit to rise 46 percent.
Goldman Sachs (GS.N), Credit Agricole's (CAGR.PA) CLSA brokerage and Italian banks UniCredit SpA (CRDI.MI) and Intesa Sanpaolo's Banca IMI unit, both on Prada's board, are joint bookrunners and global coordinators of the IPO.
($1=7.778 Hong Kong dollars)
(Additional reporting by Kevin Lim and Charmian Kok in Singapore, Silvia Aloisi, Michel Rose in Milan; Editing by Vinu Pilakkott and Andrew Callus)
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