Lingerie maker Hunkemoller invites further bids in sale – sources

FRANKFURT/LONDON Oct 1 Suitors for Dutch
lingerie maker Hunkemoller have been invited to submit another
round of offers for the roughly 500 million euro ($560 million)
company as the sale process enters the final phase, two sources
familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

In July, several private equity groups including Sycamore
and Carlyle handed in bids for the company, which employs Dutch
model and TV personality Sylvie Meis in its marketing and has
over 600 stores in 16 countries from Spain to Saudi Arabia. At
the time, a buyer was expected to be picked within days.

But the offers had failed to meet the seller’s expectations,
several sources said.

At the same time, Hunkemoller’s trading had proved stronger
than initially expected with annualised earnings before
interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of 52
million euros, one of the sources said.

In July, sources said the company’s EBITDA was about 50
million euros.

One source familiar with the process said that bidders now
had the chance to tweak offers taking into account the earnings
update, and a decision was expected by early November.

While Sycamore and other buyout groups remain interested,
Carlyle had dropped out, a third source said.

Listed retail fashion companies such as HM,
Inditex, Next, Fast and Marks and
Spencer trade at an average of 13 times their expected
core earnings. Hunkemoller’s private equity owner PAI also hopes
to sell at double-digit earnings multiple.

Banks have lined up around 450 million euros of debt to back
a private equity buyout, according to banking sources.

PAI, Carlyle and Sycamore declined to comment.
($1 = 0.8932 euros)

(Reporting by Arno Schuetze and Claire Ruckin; editing by Susan
Thomas)

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