Vivarte Sells Merkal For Restructuring Debts

France

Group Vivarte SAS will sell Spanish self service warehousing to London private Holdings Company OpCapita

Retailer Merkal Calzados completed the last step in improving the asset structure.

According to the world clothing shoes and hats net, this year, Vivarte SAS has sold French shoe brand Andr & Pataugas and women's clothing.

Brand Kooka, while clothing retailer Naf Naf and Cowboy brand Chevignon are waiting to change hands.

These pactions are part of the debt restructuring agreement reached by the group at the beginning of the year.

According to the agreement, Vivarte SAS needs to focus on the development of six major brands such as La Halle, Besson, Minelli, San Marina, CosmoParis and Caroll by selling 95 million euros of assets sold.

In June, the group completed its second debt restructuring in three years, successfully reducing its debt by 60% and temporarily lifting the crisis for many years.

The 6 creditors agreed to exempt 846 million euros from debt, reducing the group's liabilities to 572 million euros, while the remaining debt maturities extended from two years to 2021.

In 2014, the group cut its debt to 800 million euros, but in the past two years, the deep restructuring failed to boost revenue and debt accumulated to 1 billion 500 million euros.

Vivarte SAS has about 16 thousand employees, selling 2 billion 200 million euros in 2016, a decrease of 8% over the 2015 fiscal year, while sales in the 2015 fiscal year and 2014 fiscal year have fallen by 11% and 10%.

In 2015, the group closed nearly 300 stores and reduced more than 1600 jobs. In the beginning of February, 600 people were laid off, and France was widely concerned about the high unemployment rate.

In 2007, the UK private equity fund Charterhouse Capital Partners LLP bought the Vivarte SAS from the French partner Pai Partners, with a valuation of 3 billion 460 million euros, including debt, and the actual paction amount was only 1 billion 500 million euros.

After the reorganization in 2014, the group was jointly owned by four investment funds Alcentra Ltd., Babson Capital Management LLC, Oaktree Capital Group LLC, and GoldenTree and so on.

Merkal Calzados, founded in 1987, employs 1100 employees and sells 131 million euros in the latest financial year.

In 2000, Vivarte SAS bought the brand and invested 4 million euros in its development in the Spanish market.

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