Final agreement has been reached on the sale of Hema to Parcom and Mississippi Ventures of the Van Eerd family (Jumbo). The separtlent store chain also announced its quarterly results.
400 million euro
The takeover of Hema is complete. The consortium of Parcom and Mississippi Ventures has arranged an acquisition financing of 400 million euro (including bank loans) and a new revolving credit facility of 80 million euro. This means that all bonds, worth some 300 million euro, will be redeemed and that all Hema shares will be held by the consortium, in a 50/50 partnership, upon completion of the deal. The deal will reduce the annual interest burden of the retail chain from more than 50 million euro before restructuring to less than 10 million.
“Today’s announcement is a major milestone for Hema, as the bank financing was a crucial condition for the successful conclusion of the agreement on the acquisition. When we finalize the transaction early 2021, we will not only have a healthy financial situation with a significantly decreased debt level and ample room to invest in our future development, but we will also have very supportive new long term owners providing Hema with a stable operating platform going forward.,” said CEO Tjeerd Jegen in a press release.
Online boost
This morning Hema also announced encouraging quarterly results. Despite the corona crisis, the department store chain managed to limit the fall in turnover to 2.2% compared to the same period last year. Turnover from home deliveries rose by 75.5%, which compensated a significant part of the loss of sales in the stores due to covid-19. Normalized EBITDA decreased by 11.9% to 55 million euro.
Hema sold significantly more non-food items in recent months, such as household goods and personal care products (+8.9%) and clothing (+2.6%). Food sales fell by more than a quarter, as many Hema restaurants had to remain temporarily closed.
