LJUBLJANA (Slovenia), June 22 (SeeNews) – US-based investment fund HPS, formerly known as Highbridge Principal Strategies, has outbid the competition in the sale of Slovenia's Merkur Trgovina, the retail unit of insolvent home products and appliances group Merkur, Slovenian media reported.
Details of the sale process, including the bidding price, will be known after the sale contract is cleared by the court supervising Merkur's bankruptcy, Ljubljana-based news daily Delo reported on Wednesday.
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HPS, headquartered in New York, manages assets valued at $39 billion (34.9 million euro).
In February, HETA Asset Resolution (HETA), the 'bad bank' of former Hypo Alpe Adria International, invited expressions of interest in the purchase of a network of 13 Merkur retail centres located in 11 cities across Slovenia.
The portfolio of over 125,000 sq m gross building area and over 110,000 sq m of gross leasable area (GLA) is fully owned by HETA. It was rented out long-term to Merkur Trgovina.
HETA Asset Resolution is part of HETA Group, a wind-down corporation owned by Austria. Its statutory task is to dispose of the non-strategic portion of Hypo Alpe Adria, nationalized in 2009, as effectively as possible whilst preserving value.
($=0.895619 euro)