July 11 (SeeNews) - US investment firm LCN Capital Partners has acquired 15 of overall 23 retail centres of Slovenia's leading DIY chain Merkur for 100 million euro ($113 million), local media reported.
The seller is another US investment firm - HPS Investment Partners, which back in July 2017 bought Merkur Trgovina, the retail unit of insolvent home products and appliances group Merkur, for 28.56 million euro, news portal Siol.net reported on Wednesday, quoting unnamed sources.
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The media report notes there has been no official information on the deal even though it is comparable to the acquisition of ten Mercator stores in Slovenia by Austria's Supernova for 116 million euro in October 2018.
According to Siol.net, New York-headquartered LCN Capital Partners bought 15 Merkur retail centres located in Ljubljana, Maribor, Celje, Koper, Velenje and other cities.
The media outlet also reported that HPS Investment has been considering in the past months the sale of Merkur Trgovina.
Merkur went into bankruptcy in November 2014, following which its activities were separated into two new firms - the retail unit Merkur Trgovina and Merkur Nepremicnine, which is in charge of real estate assets.
Also in 2017, New York-headquartered HPS Investment paid 49 million euro for the purchase of 13 Merkur retail centres from HETA Asset Resolution (HETA), the 'bad bank' of former Hypo Alpe Adria International. It was reportedly interested in another five Merkur centres back then, which belonged to Merkur Nepremicnine.
($=0.887262 euro)