JD buys ceconomy
Takeover offer there-Chinese make Ernst at MediaMarkt-Saturn
At MediaMarkt and Saturn, Chinese will soon be in charge. Onlineeriese JD.com has presented an official takeover offer for ceconomy, the parent company of the electronics chains.
The Chinese e-commerce-giant JD.com wants to get on a large style at the MediaMarkt-Saturn mother Ceconomy. For this purpose, her daughter Jingdong Holding Germany GmbH presented a voluntary public takeover offer. According to this, the Ceconomy shareholders should receive 4.60 euros per share in cash, said Ceconomy AG in a mandatory announcement in Düsseldorf. The offer corresponds to a company value of 4 billion euros. It is 43 percent above the average course of the past three months.
“We enter into a partnership with JD.com to strengthen European trade, based on complementary strengths and common values,” said Ceconomy boss Kai-Ulrich Deissner, according to a supplementary message. According to this, there should be no operational terminations or closures of locations as part of the transaction. “Jd.com will also protect the existing company agreements, collective agreements and the existing company participation in the Supervisory Board. These commitments apply for three years.” JD.com also does not plan significant changes to the corporate structure or the brand architecture.
The largest shareholder of the Düsseldorfers has so far been the Kellerhals family of co -founders with 29.2 percent. In addition, there is a Meridian Foundation involved in the Mertro wholesale group with a good eleven percent, the family group Haniel with 16.7 percent and Freenet with 6.7 percent.
According to a shareholders’ agreement, the shareholder group Convergenta, behind which the Kellerhal family is standing, will retain 25.35 percent of the Ceconomy shares after the takeover offer is carried out. In addition, JD.com has “concluded agreements with several shareholders of the company in which they irrevocably committed themselves to accepting the takeover offer for a total of 31.7 percent of the ceconomy shares (including 3.81 percent of convergenta),” it said.
The Ceconomy share recently skipped the takeover offer to 4.35 euros per share. Since the beginning of the year, it has increased more than 60 percent in the course of ongoing takeover fantasies.
JD.com with an annual turnover of almost $ 159 billion (2024) sees itself as “a worldwide leading technology and service company with a supply chain as the centerpiece and China’s largest retailer after sales”. According to companies, Nasdaq has been listed for more than ten years.
According to the annual report, Ceconomy is present with more than 1000 markets in eleven European countries. In the recent full financial year 2023/24 (until the end of September), the company generated sales of 22.4 billion euros, a almost quarter of the online business.
The first Saturn branch was opened in Cologne in 1961, the first Media Markt in 1979 in Munich. The retail chain took over the competitor Saturn 1990. A few years later, Metro AG had the majority on both brands. The trading company Ceconomy, which includes the MediaMarktsaturn Retail Group today, was created in 2017 as a spin -off of Metro.
Dpa
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Source: Stern
