FRANCE. Elior – the French catering services group – through its Spanish subsidiary Ãreas, has acquired a 15% stake in the company Sintres.
Sintres, based in Basel, Switzerland, and mainly owned by investment funds managed by Advent International, has taken control of 75% of Dufry group. The other shareholder in Sintres is Nivada, the watches company owned by Andre Holzer.
The private equity firm, Advent International, has been Elior’s partner for some years. In 1997, Advent International took an active part in building up the Elior group, and in the latter’s IPO in 2000. It is still today a significant shareholder in Elior. In Mexico, Advent International and Ãreas became partners to develop jointly food service activities in airports. In 2001 it sold Latinoamericana Duty Free, the leader in the Mexican duty free market, to Ãreas.
In a statement Elior confirmed Ãreas has been asked by Advent International to join in Dufry’s acquisition.
Following this stake acquisition, Elior/Ãreas and Advent International have decided under a common agreement to study (until the end of June 2004) methodologies which could be implemented later for a “progressively reinforced partnership.”
Elior said: “Should no agreement be found by this date, thus Ãreas can sell its stake (put option) to Advent International, who will benefit as well from a call option on the same conditions.”
Elior co-chairman Robert Zolade commented: “In France and in Spain, Elior is the leader in concession catering markets, notably in airports, motorways and rail stations. For a few years Elior has also developed complementary activities in shops, which are dedicated to answering the needs of both customers and concession authorities. By strengthening its means and know-how, this operation will allow Elior to enlarge and progressively complete its commercial offer in concession markets.”
Newly-appointed Dufry president and Advent’s Mexico City-based managing director Juan Carlos Torres said in an interview with The Deal: “We have two areas of strategy. One is to improve company operations, by cost-cutting and improving margins. There are things we can do there like centralising purchasing. … and it’s also a good platform from which to buy other duty free companies.”
Torres said Advent was already in talks with other companies, but gave no details.
See also today’s related story on the closing of the Advent-Dufry transaction and the appointment of Julian Diaz as Dufry CEO.
