Kesa Electricals, the owner of the Comet chain which turned down a £1.7bn bid approach in March, bolstered its defence against its stalker returning by massively revaluing its property assets yesterday.
The group, which was spun out of Kingfisher three years ago, said its real estate is worth £495m – 85 per cent more than the value ascribed to its stores in its books. Analysts said this was worth about 92p per share.
Kesa’s shareholders had called on the group’s management to carry out a fresh valuation in light of speculation that private equity groups were still circling. Permira and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts are reported to be working on a fresh bid after Kesa’s executives dismissed a 325p-per-share approach for undervaluing the group.
Christian Koefoed-Nielsen, a retail analyst at Panmure Gordon, said: “This [the new valuation] may reawaken private equity interest in the business and focus management’s attention on crystallising value in the business before someone else does.” Shares in Kesa slipped 1.5p to 299p.
Details of the enhanced valuation came as Kesa revealed sales had picked up in its first-quarter trading update. At Comet, its core UK electricals chain, underlying sales rose for the first time in five quarters. Demand for flat-screen televisions before the World Cup lifted like-for-like sales at Comet by 2.8 per cent during the three months to 30 April. But sales of white goods such as fridges remained “poor”
. Jean-Noel Labroue, the chief executive, called the start to the year “satisfactory”. He added that the second quarter had seen “further acceleration of TV sales across the group”.
Although football mania is giving electricals retailers a boost, analysts fear the lift will be temporary. In France Darty saw underlying sales rise 4.7 per cent, although BUT, its furniture chain, suffered a 5 per cent fall on the same basis.
From The Independent