Carrefour is intended to buy Karavan

The second largest chain of food hypermarkets is negotiating the purchase of the controlling stake of Karavan hypermarket chain in Ukraine.The owners of the chain estimated 100%
of its cost to be worth to $224-300 mln., Kommersant-Ukraine informs.

One of "Kommersant" sources
has informed that the purchase of 50%+1 share of the company is under
negotiation: "Also, the buyer may have right to purchase the
rest of shares in two-three years after the deal". "Kommersant"
interviewees state that Carrefour is the major prospective buyer of
Karavan. However, there is a possibility that the deal is not
finished this year, according to the "Kommersant" source
which is close to the deal organizers.

The first hypermarket of Karavan group
was opened in 2003 in Kyiv. Now the chain owns four stores in Kyiv,
Kharkov, and Chernovtsi; the total trade floor is 28,600 sq. meters.
Andrey Gordienko and Sergey Khripkov own 40% of Karavan chain each;
the structures of Citigrouyp bank purchased the rest 20% past year.
According to the tentative data, the revenues amounted to around $187
mln. in 2007; EBITDA – $7.6 mln., the net profit was $6,300 per
square meter.