Permira buys Hana Group in SBO

Francesca Veronesi
01 February 2019

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Permira has acquired France-based Hana Group, an operator of in-store Asian cuisine counters, from US-based GP TA Associates.

The Rothschild-led auction kicked off in October last year, as reported by Unquote sister publication Debtwire.

Permira was offering approximately €500m for Hana, while the €550m asking price implied a 12.7x EV multiple on 2019 projected EBITDA (€43m), Unquote sister publication Mergermarket reported recently.

Permira declined to comment on the transaction.

The GP is currently deploying its Permira VI fund, closed on €7.5bn around two years ago. The fund, which provides equity tickets in the €250m-1bn range, previously invested in France, acquiring Exclusive Group in 2018 for around €1.3bn, a source familiar with the situation told Unquote at the time.

Previous funding
TA Associates acquired a majority stake in Hana in 2015. At the time, the business operated 180 food counters with 1,000 employees and annual sales of €100m.

Under TA Associates' ownership, Hana acquired Peace Dining in the US in 2016. Post-acquisition, the combined Hana-PDC entity had around 2,500 employees working in 380 counters and was expected to generate annual revenues of €178m.

Company
Founded in 2012, Hana is a provider of freshly prepared sushi through its 900 points of sale in grocery retailers across 12 markets. Based in Levallois-Perret, its core geographies are the US and France. In addition, Hana operates in the UK, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Romania and Luxembourg. The business now employs 4,000 people globally.

People
Permira – Tara Alhadeff, Alexandre Margoline (partner, head of France); Tara Alhadeff (principal).
Hana Group – Laurent Boukobza, Jacques Attal (founders); Yann Coleou (CEO).
TA Associates – Patrick Sader (managing director).

Advisers
Vendor – Rothschild (financial due diligence); KPMG (financial due diligence); Latham & Watkins (legal); Boston Consulting Group (commercial due diligence).
Management – McDermott (legal); Gide (legal); Callisto (corporate finance).
Equity – Cambon Partners (financial due diligence); McKinsey (commercial due diligence); Simon Kucher (commercial due diligence); Alix Partners (commercial due diligence); Weil Gotshal & Manges (legal); Alvarez & Marsal (financial due diligence); PwC (tax).