Dalmatia’s Studenac is sold into Polish hands.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 6th of June, 2018, Omiš’s well known “Studenac” is the second largest Dalmatian merchant chain behind Split’s “Tommy” and is the eighth largest retail chain in Croatia.
The Dalmatian merchant giant with more than 2,700 employees, has now been sold, as Slobodna Dalmacija reports, to the Polish private equity fund Enterprise Fund VII, managed by Enterprise Investors.
As far as Croatia is concerned, the same Polish fund recently became the owners of Pan Pek, they also took over Intersport from the former Agrokor boss, Ivica Todoric, and through a company in the Czech Republic, they are also owners of Radenska and Studenac’s mineral water, writes tportal.
The signing of the contract and its public presentation should be done this week, when the details of the takeover will be disclosed and light will be shed on what is potentially the largest foreign investment this year in Croatia.
Although the rumour was that back when negotiations with the Poles had just begun, Studenac’s owner would retain a certain stake in the company, it now appears that Josip Milavić has decided to leave his portfolio entirely to Poland’s Enterprise Investors. To be more specific, the Poles will be left with the Studenac business itself, while all of the company’s real estate, including the stores themselves, will remain under the ownership of Milavić’s family.
Studenac’s founder and now former overseas owner is NTL, which will now lose out significantly on part of the market, which, especially considering the still unclear Konzum position, is in for some very interesting days.
Otherwise, the Studenac retail chain ended the ywar 2016 with more than 360 stores and supermarkets, with revenues of 1.5 billion kuna, which marked an increase of 80 million kuna when compared to the previous year.
