Dean C.K. Cox for The New York TimesAn ICA Maxi grocery store in Stockholm. Hakon Invest will acquire a 60 percent stake in ICA.
LONDON – The Swedish investment company Hakon Invest agreed on Monday to buy the remaining stake in the Nordic retailer ICA it did not already own for 20 billion Swedish kronor, or $3.1 billion.
Under the terms of the deal, Hakon Invest will acquire a 60 percent stake in ICA, which operates supermarkets in Sweden, Norway and the Baltic countries, from the Dutch retailer Ahold, which owns the Giant and Stop Shop grocery-store chains in the United States.
Ahold announced in September that it was considering the sale of its holding in ICA to focus on businesses in which it retained full control. The Dutch retailer and Hakon Invest had shared equal control over the management of ICA, which runs more than 2,000 stores across the Nordic region.
“The deal strengthens the conditions for continued satisfactory and stable dividends to our shareholders,” Hakon Invest’s chairman, Hannu Ryopponen, said in a statement.
Hakon Invest will use existing cash reserves and bank financing to pay for the deal, according to a company statement. After completing the deal, it said it would repay the debt financing through a share issuance of 5 billion kronor to existing investors.
Shares in Ahold rose 4.3 percent in morning trading in Amsterdam on Monday.
Hakon Invest’s stock price climbed almost 17 percent in early morning trading in Stockholm on Monday. The company plans to change its name to ICA Gruppen after completing the deal.
The companies added that they had agreed to pay themselves a dividend totaling 2 billion kronor from ICA, of which Ahold would receive 1.2 billion kronor.
The deal for ICA is expected to close by the end of the second quarter of this year.
Article source: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/02/11/hakon-invest-to-buy-stake-in-nordic-retailer-for-3-1-billion/?partner=rss&emc=rss
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