One of Victoria founders sells 4% DIXY shares for 1.5 bln rubles
MOSCOW. Oct 31 (Interfax) - Alexander Zaribko, one of the founders of the Victoria retail chain, has sold 5 million shares in DIXY Group , which he received as a result of the retailers' merger last year, on the market for 1.525 billion rubles (a bit less than $50 million at the current Central Bank of Russia exchange rate), a financial market source told Interfax.
The shares were sold for 305 rubles each.
By 12:15 pm Moscow time, Dixy's shares had fallen to 314.1 rubles each, down 5.1% from Tuesday. They then started to increase and reach 332 rubles by 5:20 pm Moscow.
Zaribko's stake was sold over two days, October 30-31, one market source told Interfax. The price guidance came to 305-325 rubles per share. Therefore, the shares were sold under the guidance.
At the end of trades on October 29, which is before the start of the stake's sale, one DIXY share stood at 335 rubles on the exchange. As result, the discount on the sale of the minority stake came to 9%. Under current conditions and considering DIXY's low liquidity, this is an adequate discount, Uralsib analyst Marat Ibragimov said.
The decrease in DIXY's quotations was driven by active selloffs of shares but the company's investment attractiveness of the company remains high, he told Interfax.
The sale of shares in DIXY by the minority shareholder is a private deal and will have no influence on the main estimate of the retailer's stock, Raiffeisenbank senior analyst Natalya Kolupayeva said.
Prior to the transaction with DIXY, Zaribko owned 29% of Victoria shares, Nikolai Vlasenko had 37.4% and Vladimir Katsman owned 27.5%. In total, they received 13.1% of DIXY.
Therefore, Zaribko owned some 4% of the merged company. As a result of the sale, he has almost fully withdrawn from DIXY's capital.
The transaction put short-term pressure on DIXY's shares, Kolupayeva said. She added that the share sale by the former co-owner in Victoria should slightly boost DIXY shares in free float since a low free float is a hindrance for many investors.
In addition, Dixy's management earlier did not rule out holding an additional share issue for financing more aggressive development, starting form 2013, the analyst said. Therefore, a possible additional share issue in 2013 might be an additional positive factor for DIXY's free float.
"In our view, DIXY has not taken advantage of the option to buy out this stake since the company needs funds for financing its investment program. Additional loan funds raised for buying the shares would slightly raise the net debt to EBITDA ratio from 2.7x to 2.9x, and could theoretically spur further share sales by other minority shareholders who are Victoria's former shareholders," Kolupayeva told Interfax.
DIXY Group manages a chain of DIXY convenience stores, Megamart hypermarkets and Minimart supermarkets. Last year it bought Victoria, which includes the Kvartal, Deshevo and Semeynaya Kopilka convenience stores and the Victoria supermarkets.
By the end of September, DIXY Group was managing 1,343 stores, including 1,172 DIXY convenience stores, 115 Kvartal and Deshevo discount stores, 26 Victoria supermarkets, 11 Minimarts, 18 Megamarts and a cash & carry store.
In 2011, DIXY generated 102.3 billion rubles in revenue. Its revenue totaled 106.7 billion rubles in January-September 2012.
DIXY's charter capital consists of 124.75 million ordinary shares. Igor Kesayev's Mercury Group owns a controlling stake in the group (54.42%) through Dixy Holding Limited.
