FIH Partners advises the Gjørup family on the divestment of 75% of TOP-TOY FIH Partners advises the Gjørup family on the divestment of 75% of TOP-TOY A/S, the leading Nordic toy retailer, to EQT, one of Europe’s leading private equity groups.
TOP-TOY A/S owns and operates BR, the #1 high street toy store concept in the Nordics, and TOYS”R”US, the leading large-box toy store concept in the Nordics, based on a brand license from TOYS”R”US Inc. The combined business comprises +300 stores in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland and Germany with total revenues of DKK 3.4bn and an EBITDA of 225m in 2014/15.
FIH Partners acted as exclusive financial advisor to the Gjørup family on the creation of the partnership with EQT. Over a period of 18 months leading up to the transaction and establishment of the partnership, our role was to act as end-to-end exit advisor by:
Conducting a pre-process strategic review of the TOP-TOY Group from a commercial, operational, legal and financial perspective in order to assess the value optimisation potential ahead of an exit. The strategic review resulted in several pre-process undertakings by the group including the development of the a new growth strategy, close down of the Norstar wholesale activities and complete separation of the group’s retail and real-estate activities
Assisting the family in the assessment of alternative exit opportunities and potential partnership structures as well as selecting potential partner candidates
Arranging a structured sales process targeted at a shortlisted group of potential partners with significant international retail experience and assisting in the negotiations of terms for the transaction and the future partnership
The transaction is subject to approval by the relevant competition authorities, and is expected to close early 2016. The enterprise value of the transaction is DKK 2,325 million.
