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Mid Europa Sells Zabka Polska to CVC
21 February 2017
Mid Europa Partners ("Mid Europa"), the leading private
equity investor in Central and South Eastern Europe, announced
today that it has entered into an agreement to sell Zabka Polska
("Zabka" or the "Company"), to funds advised by CVC Capital
Partners (the "Transaction"). The Transaction is subject to
customary competition authority clearance, and is expected to close
in Q2 2017. Zabka sale is the largest ever transaction in 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 €1.1 billion to its investors
during Q2 2017.
Robert Knorr, Co-Managing Partner of Mid Europa and head
of its retail and consumer practice, commented: "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 and helped drive
its transformational change until its exit in 2017 said: "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 who has been involved with Zabka throughout the
investment cycle noted: "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 commented: "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.
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