Maxima eyes Spain's 5th largest supermarket chain
Originally, Maxima was shortlisted as a potential bidder for Dinosol together with Spanish El Abrol and French Carrefour but the latter two reportedly considered only portions of the food retail business, and so appear to have backed down. Analysts estimate that Dinosol may go for EUR 150-250m.
According to sources, Dinosol's sale process started last summer after Permira, one of the largest European private equity firms, handed over its interest in the Spanish firm in a debt-for-equity swap to a consortium of more than 20 banks and hedge funds (including Bank of Scotland, Caja Madrid and Societe Generale) that had financed the supermarket operator acquisition and development. Online information sources claim that Dinosol is now burdened with EUR 460m of debt. The company runs three food store chains – HiperDino Express (convenience stores and small supermarkets in the Canary Islands), HiperDino (supermarkets and hypermarkets in the Canary Islands), SuperSol (supermarkets and hypermarkets in mainland Spain) and CashDiplo (cash&carry stores in mainland Spain and the Canary Islands). The majority of Dinosol's business – almost 70% of it with 235 stores – is on the Canary Islands.
Dinosol's turnover is expected to have declined by 2% in 2011 to EUR 1.4bn. To compare, Maxima Group achieved a 7% increase in turnover to EUR 3.2bn (the figure includes food retail operations in the Baltics and Bulgaria plus a DIY chain in Lithuania) with 463 stores.
Maxima LT will not comment the potential acquisition but in a 2010 interview to news2biz, head of Lithuanian NDX energija, the private equity investment arm owned by the same businessmen as Maxima, pointed to Spain as a potential expansion market. "We are interested to invest in potentially lucrative businesses in markets where business expectations are not as optimistic as elsewhere. We have toured Greece, Turkey but have decided to focus on Spain. The Baltics are not on our agenda today," NDX energija's CEO Petras Jasinskas then told news2biz (see no 306 page 5). Since then, Maxima owners have acquired a couple of food companies and a regional supermarket chain in Poland.
Source: balticbusinessnews.com
