July 3 2008, 10:05

French chain of food hypermarkets is intended to buy Karavan

French chain of food hypermarkets Carrefour, the second largest chain after Wal-Mart in the world, is negotiating the purchase of the controlling stake of Karavan hypermarket chain. The owners of the chain estimated 100% of its cost to be worth to $224-300 mln., Kommersant-Ukraine informs.

One of "Kommersant" sources has informed that the purchase of 50%+1 share of the company is under negotiation: "Also, the buyer may have right to purchase the rest of shares in two-three years after the deal". "Kommersant" interviewees state that Carrefour is the major prospective buyer of Karavan. However, there is a possibility that the deal is not finished this year, according to the "Kommersant" source which is close to the deal organizers. The press service of Carrefour made no comments.

Carrefour managers have visited Ukraine for the first time for more than a year ago - the chain surveyed the market. One of the capital investment bankers specified that the retailer was also interested in the purchase of Furshet chain (French Auchan chain purchased 20% of Furshet shares in March 2007). Carrefour is conducting negotiations with many chains now.

Carrefour is the fourth large foreign retailer which may enter Ukraine with the help of the local partner. For example, the joint enterprise with EastOne group under Victor Pinchuk management set up Russian "Mosmart"; the largest Serbian retailer Delta Maxi Group established the joint enterprise with Russian investment company Finstar under Oleg Boyko management for the further development in Ukraine. French Auchan has also entered a new market by means of the joint enterprise with the local retailer for the first time in its practice. "There are great problems with the filing of the ownership right for the land. There is an experience of Billa chain which has failed to develop much during 5 years; it proves that the purchase of the local chain is a better solution", Tamara Levchenko says.

The experts consider the entrance to Ukraine via the local partner to be the correct method. Auchan, the competitor of Carrefour, has already used this method - it purchased 20% of Ukrainian "Furshet" chain past spring.

Carrefour was founded in 1959 in France; the families of Fournier and Defforey were the founders. It unites more than 14,500 stores in 30 countries: Carrefour hypermarkets (62% of the chain), Champion and Norte supermarkets, shops Shopi and Marche Plus, discounters Dia, Ed and cash-and-carry shops Promocash. The shareholders are Halley Family Group (13.03%), Blue Capital S.a.r.l. (9.09%), the institutional investors own 29.13%. The consolidated revenues amounted to EUR 82.14 billion in 2007; the net profit was EUR 2.47 billion. The yesterday capitalization at NYSE Euronext was EUR 23.83 billion.

The first hypermarket of Karavan group was opened in 2003 in Kyiv. Now the chain owns four stores in Kyiv, Kharkov, and Chernovtsi; the total trade floor is 28,600 sq. meters. Andrey Gordienko and Sergey Khripkov own 40% of Karavan chain each; the structures of Citigrouyp bank purchased the rest 20% past year. According to the tentative data, the revenues amounted to around $187 mln. in 2007; EBITDA - $7.6 mln., the net profit was $6,300 per square meter.