Complete takeover
According to Reuters, the Qatari’s Divine
Investments did not only make a bid on the 70% of
shares owned by Rreef (the real estate branch of Deutsche Bank), but also on
the 30% owned by the Italian Borletti Group – even though just a month ago it seemed like the Qatari and the
Italians were working together on a deal.
Borletti and Rreef bought the chain of
warehouses in 2006 of PPR for 1.1 billion euro. According to Reuters
the current bid would be worth two billion euro. And even apart from that, Borletti will not stay behind empty
handed, because Divine Investment is proposing a seven year management deal
with Borletti Management Group. BMG would be getting a strategic advising
and an operation roll, says Reuters.
In exchange, BMG would receive 1% of sales of Le
Printemps plus a performance bonus linked to sales growth. The contract also
states the current management team can stay in position and there will also be
no redundancies, in an effort to soothe the French unions who prefer a merger with Groupe
Lafayette.
