Sweden's Axfood's has made a cash offer to shareholders to acquire Matse Holding AB(mat.se), a leading pure play online retailer, the company announced Thursday.
It has offered SEK 17 (€1.73) in cash for each share. The total offer for all shares is approximately SEK 554 million(€56.5 million), based on more than 32 million outstanding shares. Shareholders have between the 21 December and the 23 January 2017 to accept the offer.
In a statement, Axfood said that the increasing clout of e-commerce in the food retail market has led it to consider development strategies in that arena. An acquisition of Mat.se would 'accelerate the pace of growth and strengthen Axfood’s position in e-commerce.'
The retailer doesn't plan to make any significant changes to Matse's operation.
"The aim of the acquisition of mat.se is to accelerate and develop our digital venture. Apart from the fact that their business complements our organisation and our resources, they have a company culture that is a good fit with Axfood," said Anders Strålman, president and CEO of Axfood.
Matse Holding AB is a consortium of subsidiaries Matse AB, Cold Cargo Sweden AB, and Kokaihop Media AB. Matse AB runs a full-range online grocery store, Mat.se, offering home delivery of products in Gothenburg, Stockholm, and western Skåne province. Cold Cargo Sweden AB is a home-delivery business, whereas Kokaihop Media AB oversees cooking and food websites Kokaihop.se and Spisa.nu.
The group had net sales of SEK 203 million(€20.7 million) in 2015.
The Axfood Group operates chains Willys and Hemköp in the country. It has 264 group-owned stores and roughly 820 collaborating stores. Its 2015 sales reached SEK 41.2 million (€4.2 million).
© 2016 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Karen Henderson. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
