Mercator sells Intersport for EUR 34.5 million

The supermarket chain Mercator has sold Intersports, its sports goods sale company, to the private investment fund Enterprise VII from Poland for EUR 34.5 million, the Slovenian company, owned by Agrokor, confirmed.

Mercator owns the franchise for the sale of sports goods of the Intersport brand in over 100 stores in SEE, most of them in Slovenia and Croatia.

The sales and purchase agreement should be realized by the end of the year, by which time it should be approved by the Slovenian regulators. The transaction will enable Intersport to grow further and Mercator to have a strategic partnership in the area of sports goods, Mercator said.

The agreement envisions the takeover of all employees and stores operations by the owner. Intersport has 35 stores in Slovenia, 34 in Croatia, 12 in Serbia, 10 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, two in Montenegro, and it is also present in Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo

Michal Kedzia, in charge of investments in Croatia and Slovenia, stated that he wished the transaction to be completed by late November. He said that there would be no changes made in the management structure of Intersport and that Mateja Jasenak would remain the head of the company.

The Polish fund expects that the company will grow, open 50 new stores in the next five years and employ more people.

Kedzia also stated that the Enterprise Investors fund had invested in 15 retail chains until then, but that it had never invested in sports goods and equipment retailers.

The fund also owns the Czech Kofola, which has bought Radenska, the Slovenian producer of mineral water. Enterprise Investors is one of the largest private equity firms in CEE. Since it was founded in 1990, it has established eight new funds with a total capital of over EUR 2 billion.

Poslovni sistem Mercator d.d. Ljubljana

Fortenova grupa d.d.

Enterprise investors Warsaw Poland

sports goods sale

Intersport

Enterprise VII

Agrokor

Michal Kedzia

Mateja Jasenak

Enterprise Investors

Kofola

Radenska

Mercator

sports goods