Luxempart in 2016 invested €15m in Zooplus, the German Amazon of pet food founded in 1999. Although it had good prospects, its share price was stuck at €120. The following year, Luxempart strengthened its position in a series of accompanying investments worth €48.44m.
Today, it says it is ready to sell part of its 4.99% stake to Hellman & Friedman, which has made a friendly €3bn takeover bid to acquire a majority stake in the group headed by Cornelius Pratt. In the meantime, Zooplus has taken full advantage of the covid-19 pandemic when pet owners turned to it en masse for food. In 2020, sales jumped by 18% to €1.8bn, with eight million customers in 30 countries.
And 2021 will be even better. The company announced in that it had passed the €1bn mark in revenue over six months. Three days earlier, Zooplus had announced a strategic partnership with Hellman & Friedman, which offered €390 per share to buy 50% plus one share and take the Munich-based company to an even higher level. This represents a 40% increase over the last three months or a 34% increase compared to its all-time high.
Hellman & Friedman, which has nearly $80bn in assets under management, announced in mid-July that it had raised nearly $25bn by injecting $1.8bn into its tenth investment fund.
For Luxempart, the sale will generate a profit of €93m , or 2.2 times the cost of the investment.
This article in French on Paperjam. It has been translated and edited for Delano.