Samsung and Alibaba enter the contest Via Retail

São Paulo – the Chinese Alibaba and Suning, besides Samsung, South Korea entered in the running to buy Via retail, appliance business of Grupo Pão de Açúcar which includes the brands Casas Bahia and Ponto Frio, found the Broadcast, news in real time system of Grupo Estado.
The retailer comes attracting attention of foreigners aimed at joining Brazil. In addition to the Asian companies, showed the Chilean Falabella''s interest, the South African and brazilian Steinhoff Lojas Americanas.
According to sources, no formal offer has been made, but there are groups who want to negotiate with exclusivity. This phase of the process is still in an attempt to attract a varied amount of proposals, but the definition of sale price is not clear, according to sources.
Considered the current market value, the slice of 43.3% of GPA in Via Retail comes to R$ 1.65 billion. The current value, however, is considerably lower than the initial offering of shares (IPO, the acronym in English) in 2013.
The evaluation of people close is that the company could hardly, with the current market situation, reaching prices equivalent to those of 2013.
When the Via Retail made his public offer of units in the bag, the GPA had obtained more than half of that amount – almost 900 million R$ current-to sell a much smaller slice. At the time, the participation of the GPA in the company fell 9.1 percentage points only from 52.4% to 43.3% today.
Analysts have called attention to the expectation that the sale be made with an award in relation to the current value, which would benefit minority shareholders, given the 100% clause to tag along, which allows them to sell their papers under the same conditions.
Another challenge in relation to the price is that he would have to make up for any losses that the GPA will have to forgo synergies that came by obtaining between your two business, food retail and durable.
The Board of Directors of Grupo Pão de Açúcar (GPA) authorized, at its meeting on 23 November day, the Board to start the process of selling its holding in the capital of Via retail.
The decision, according to the company, are in line with its long-term strategy, to focus on the food retail
The transaction will mark a new twist in the story of two of the biggest retail brands: durable Ponto Frio and Casas Bahia. Since the purchase of Casas Bahia at GPA, in 2009 – at that time still controlled by businessman Abílio Diniz, the company underwent a series of changes.
Were five Presidents in the four-year period. More recently, Via Retail e-commerce business incorporated, an independent company.
Wanted, GPA, Lojas Americanas and Samsung had no comment. Others cited as interested did not respond until the closure of the issue.