Mid Europa Partners, a private equity investor focused on Central and South Eastern Europe, is to sell Zabka Polska to funds advised by CVC Capital Partners.
The transaction is subject to customary competition authority clearance and is expected to close in Q2 2017.
The Zabka sale is the largest ever transaction in the Polish food retail sector and the largest ever private equity exit in Poland. Together with the Alpha exit announced earlier this year, Mid Europa is poised to return over EUR1.1 billion to its investors during Q2 2017.
Robert Knorr, co-managing partner of Mid Europa and head of its retail and consumer practice, says: “Our successful exit from Zabka validates Mid Europa’s focus on creating value through identifying, growing and exiting highly attractive retail businesses. Our recent investments in Allegro and Profi reaffirm our continued commitment to the CEE retail landscape. As in Zabka, where we built a clear regional champion with a store network of 4,500 outlets, we will continue supplementing the buy-and-build strategy with strong execution.”
Zbigniew Rekusz, a member of the Mid Europa senior team who led the firm’s investment into Zabka in 2011, says: “We feel privileged having had the opportunity to work with Zabka management and continue to believe they are excellently placed to lead the Company through the next exciting growth cycle ahead.”
Pawel Padusinski, partner and co-head of Mid Europa’s Warsaw office, adds: “Since Mid Europa’s acquisition of Zabka, we have increased the pace of Company's organic expansion to over 500 new store openings per annum, we have doubled the size of the network, tripled its revenues and almost quadrupled its EBITDA. Our key initiatives included the strengthening of the Company’s relationship with its franchisees and launching a customer-centric commercial strategy aimed at satisfying changing customer needs.”
Tomasz Suchanski, the CEO of Zabka, says: “On behalf of the management team, I would like to thank Mid Europa for their stewardship and support over the years in uniquely positioning Zabka to capitalize on the market opportunity in a sustainably profitable manner. We are very excited about the new growth prospects that lie ahead and will continue to strive for excellence for our customers and communities.”
The transaction execution was led by Berke Biricik with the support of Lukasz Wlodarczyk and Bartosz Malecki.
JP Morgan acted as exclusive financial adviser to Mid Europa, White & Case and CMS Cameron McKenna as its legal counsels, Ernst & Young as transaction services adviser, OC&C and Beragua as commercial advisers and ERM as its environmental, health and safety adviser.
