“The merger was approved today,” Miguel de Pablos, a representative of the panel, told BNS on Wednesday. Clearance was issued for Agile Finance, an investment company that is related to VP Grupė.
Agile Finance signed a deal with Dinosol on the sale of the Supersol chain early in March.
Neither company has disclosed the terms of the deal so far. Spain’s media earlier reported that Agile Finance was buying Supersol for a symbolic price of 1 euro without assuming financial obligations. However, Dinosol’s management denied the report, as did Aurimas Zimnickas, Agile Finance CEO.
As reported last Thursday, Agile Finance is set to buy one more Dinosol’s chain, Cash Diplo.
This deal also needs clearance from Spain’s competition regulator.
Supersol had sales of 578 million euros and EBITDA of 13 million euros at the end of 2009.
Dinosol is one of Spain's largest distribution companies, ranking fifth among the country's shopping centers. The company projected sales of 1.376 billion euros in 2011, down 1.5 percent compared to 2010.
The Spanish retailer came up for sale after its former owner, Permira, pulled out of the business last April. A group of 24 banks, led by Bankia, SocietenGenerale, Lloyds, Alcentra, Indicus and Prudential, now hold a combined stake of 60 percent in the company.
The Maxima Group, which owns a retail chain in the three Baltic countries and Bulgaria, posted a 6.5 percent rise in consolidated annual sales last year, to 7.767 billion litas. The group invested 219 million litas in business development last year.
