The family owners of Italian fashion house Salvatore Ferragamo have held informal discussions with financial investors to sell a minority stake within their holding firm, as they seek to turn around the luxury brand and cope with the fallout of Covid-19, five sources told Reuters.

The company's chairman Ferruccio Ferragamo, son of founder Salvatore who is now leading the shoe dynasty, held the discussions sometime after the summer, offering a stake of about 20% in the holding vehicle that controls the Milan-listed business, banking and private equity sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity as the matter is confidential.

A spokeswoman for the company - which has a market value of 2 billion euros ($2.37 billion) - denied that the Ferragamo family planned to sell the stake.

The sources told Reuters that the family is still in the preliminary stages of testing market appetite and that a deal might face resistance from investors since the family is not willing to give away any governance control.