Hema has a (preliminary) deal with acquisition candidate Parcom and Jumbo family Van Eerd. The consortium has eight weeks to complete the financing. Meanwhile, the department store chain is also announcing good quarterly results.
Eight weeks consultation time
Hema has found its buyer: the department store chain is reserved for the consortium consisting of Parcom and Mississippi Ventures (the investment vehicle of the Van Eerd family, owners of supermarket chain Jumbo), each of which will invest 50% in the acquisition. The deal will generate a gross amount of 440 million euros for the creditors of the department store chain.
However, a number of conditions still need to be met before the sale can be definitively concluded. The buyers will have a maximum of eight more weeks to continue the due diligence and obtain financing from the Dutch banks. The consortium also promises to draw up a business plan together with the management of Hema, to outline the further growth ambitions of the chain. The retail experience of the Van Eerd family will come in handy in this respect, says Hema.
Limited decline in turnover
Meanwhile, Hema also announces that it has performed “robustly” in the second quarter. The department store chain says it can present better figures than “direct competition in all non-food categories”. Turnover fell 4% in the second quarter, to 284.4 million euros. However, that quarter also included the month of May, in which many international stores were closed. Turnover rose again in June. In Belgium and Luxembourg, however, turnover only fell by 2.7%.
Normalised EBITDA came to 51.0 million euro, which is 2.5% less than the same period a year earlier. Hema thus claims to have sufficient financial clout to be able to invest in future growth.
