Miquel Alimentació Will Sell Business But Retain RE Assets

6 July 2015 – Expansión

On Friday, Miquel Alimentació announced that it is in advanced negotiations to sell its business to the Chinese state-owned group, Bright Food. The Asian food sector giant will acquire all of the business lines of the Spanish distribution company, which owns 63 GM Cash stores and more than five hundred supermarkets, operated under the Suma and Spar brand franchises.

The Miquel family, which currently owns 100% of the share capital, will nevertheless retain ownership of all of the group’s real estate assets. In this sense, it will continue to be linked to the business as it will lease all of the wholesale distribution company’s  logistics platforms and cash & carry stores to Bright Food.

According to Miquel Alminenació, Bright Food “has expressed its interest” in retaining the strategic lines identified by the existing management team and in preserving the organisational structure and the jobs at the Girona group. The objective of the company chaired by Ramon Miquel is to generate turnover of €1,024 million this year.

With headquarters in Shanghai and publicly owned share capital, Bright Food is an industrial conglomerate comprising 22 food and distribution companies, with turnover of €18,000 million. The purchase of Miquel Alimentació will be its first in the distribution sector in Europe, and it will open the door to the Asian market for the sale of the more than 17,000 product reference lines and 2,000 own-branded products that the Miquel group currently distributes.

The operation has been brokered by GBS Finanzas. KPMG has advised the vendor and the law firm Baker & Mckenzie has advised the buyer. The purchase now depends on the relevant authorisations from the European competition court and also the administrative procedures in China.

Original story: Expansión (by S. Saborit)

Translation: Carmel Drake