top of page
Search

Spain: Aldi buys Salto Systems valued at Euro 1,5Bn

Discount Retail Chain Aldi Nord's owning family office Lukas Asset Management is the winner of the auction to buy a minority stake in the Spanish electronic lock group.

Lukas Asset Management, the family office of the heirs of Theo Albrecht (one of the founders of Aldi), is in exclusive talks for the acquisition of a minority stake, of around 20%, in the shareholding of Salto Systems, a Spanish group that is a world leader in electronic locks and access control systems, according to several market sources consulted by EXPANSIÓN.


The eventual corporate operation comes after a group of shareholders who account for just over 35% of Salto's shareholding activated a competitive process to explore their exit from the company's capital and materialize the capital gains generated by the group's accelerated growth in recent years.


Lukas AM has won the auction after submitting an offer that values 100% of the company at more than 1.5 billion euros, according to several of the sources consulted. Its proposal exceeds those that would have been made by Corporación Financiera Alba, the investment holding of the March family; and Temasek, Singapore's state-owned holding company.

Around 60% of Salto Systems is controlled by the founders and the group's management team. His intention was to find one or two new financial investors to take over from the current ones and continue to lead the company.


The shareholders now exploring their exit are the Spanish venture capital manager Alantra; the pan-European Peninsula Capital; the French family office Florac, owned by the Meyer family; and the Belgian holding company Sofina, linked to the Boël family, among other minority shareholders.


Most of these investors entered Salto in the 2020 capital increase to acquire its Austrian competitor Gantner Electronics. In that operation, Salto Systems was already valued at 800 million euros and its current price would have multiplied by at least two.

According to sources, some current minority shareholders are reportedly exploring their reinvestment in Salto Systems.


One possibility that Salto is considering, taking advantage of the fact that it has a positive net financial position, is to remove some of the current minority shareholders through an operation with treasury stock so that the minority stake is reduced from the current 35%-40% to around 20%.


Salto's EBITDA is around 95 million euros.

The idea of the founders has always been to find an investor with a passive profile, that is, who does not meddle too much in the management. Lukas AM fits this task.

An investment bank does not participate in the sale process, as usual, but the president of the company, José Antonio Itarte, is leading the process. The founders also include executives such as Javier Roquero and Marc Handels. If the negotiations with Lukas AM conclude with an agreement, it will be the family office's second investment in Spain. It already has a 26% stake in the Catalan pharmaceutical company Esteve.


Brothers Theo and Karl Albrecht founded Aldi (Albrecht Diskont) in 1946. Lukas AM is the family office of Theo's heirs and they are the ones who control Aldi Nord, which operates in northern Germany, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Spain. In the U.S., he has Trader Joe's. Karl Albrecht's heirs control Aldi Süd (southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Hungary, Italy, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the USA, Australia and China).



Comments

bottom of page