Sklavenitis cancels Veropoulos takeover deal
The widely anticipated acquisition of the Veropoulos supermarket chain by rival Sklavenitis has been canceled, five months after the formal announcement of the deal. Veropoulos is now in talks with another chain, Metro, for a possible takeover agreement next month.
The drop in Veropoulos’s turnover following the introduction of the capital controls this summer further aggravated the chain’s dire financial position. This is said to have led Sklavenitis to its withdrawal from the acquisition of the rival chain, according to well-informed sources from the banking sector, although there has been no comment yet from Sklavenitis.
Veropoulos is now in discussions with Metro, owned by Aristotelis Panteliadis, for the sale of Veropoulos’s activities in Greece, just as was the case with Sklavenitis. Even the new candidate buyer appears reserved though: “The talks are at an exploratory level. Nothing has been agreed to date,” Panteliadis told Kathimerini.
For the takeover of Veropoulos by Metro to go ahead, the latter will have to resort to borrowing, given Veropoulos’s big debts, which Metro doesn’t have the capital to cover. It is no coincidence that bank officials consider a deal between Veropoulos and Metro as rather unlikely.
