Holland & Barrett has been sold to investment firm, L1 Retail, for $1.8 billion.
L1 Retail is owned by Russion billionaire, Mikhail Fridman. The retail division is headed up by Stephan DuCharme who is also head of X5’s supervisory board, while former Home Retail chief exec, John Walden, Dunhumby founder, Clive Humby, and former Lidl boss, Karl-Heinz Holland, are all on the fund’s advisory board.
The Holland & Barrett deal is expected to close in September 2017.
"Holland & Barrett is a clear market leader in the UK health and wellness retail market, with attractive growth positions in other European and international markets, and growing online presence, with a leading customer loyalty programme and 10 million active cardholders,” said DuCharme. “We look forward to working with Peter Aldis, CEO, Holland & Barrett and his strong management team. We believe that the company is well positioned to benefit from structural growth in the growing £10 billion health and wellness market and has multiple levers for long term growth and value creation."
Holland & Barrett CEO, Peter Aldis, added: "We have upgraded much of our core store portfolio to concept stores to deliver additional in-store theatre and increased customer engagement. New products launched through our ethical sourcing programme have also been a key growth driver helping to underpin our substantial investment to gain presence across an increasingly global health and wellness market."
Founded in 1870, Holland & Barrett has 1,150 stores worldwide, with over 4,200 employees. Revenues in 2016 exceeded £610 million.