German perfumeries retail chain Douglas is said to be in advanced talks to buy Italy’s perfumeries retail chain Limoni La Gardenia, which in turn has been saved from a financial crisis by Orlando Italy private equity firm, Il Sole 24 Ore wrote in the last few days.
Douglas is in turn controlled by CVC Capital Partners, which had bouth a majority stake from Advent International in 2015, with the Kreke family still owning a minority.
Douglas has been monitoring Limoni and La Gardenia Beauty for a couple of years (see here a previous post by BeBeez) and potential investors were expecting the start of a sale process this year after FY 2016 figures are published as the debt restructuring agreements signed between Limoni, La Gardenia and thier lending banks clearly stated that the wo companies should be sold this year (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
Limoni and La Gardenia Beauty fare both owned by  Leading Luxury Group (LLG), which in turn is controlled by Orlando Italy with Bridgepoint still having a minoirity stake. Limoni was debtor to about 20 banks while La Gardenia had just Intesa Sanpaolo, Unicredit  and Ikb as its senior lenders. In the meantime funds managed by Och-Ziff had bought about 200 million euros of debt from banks, Il Sole 24 Ore said.
LLG reached 356.8 million euros in consolidated revenues in 2015 (221.6 Limoni and 135.2 millions La Gardenia Beauty), 20.97 millions in ebitda (11.1 million euros Limoni and 9.85 millions La Gardenia). In FY 2014 already LLG had reached a positive 15 million euros ebitda (8.5 millions La Gardenia and 6.5 millionsLimoni), after years when the Limoni was keeping on burnning cash flows and the market was down (se here a previous post by BeBeez).
LLG actually recorded a 18.66 million euros loss in 2015, due above all to restructuring costs which are expected to impact FY 2016 figures too.
Limoni spa had a 9.7 million loss (after a negative ebitda, if you uses the IV Ue directive aoproach for financial statements reclassification, see here an analysis by after free registration and login), while La Gardenia posted a 9 million euros net loss (after a negative ebitda reclassified with the IV directive approach, see here an analyis by Leanus). All that after a net financial debt of 76.8 million euros for Limoni and 39 millions for La Gardenia.
