The Czech billionaire's investment company Vesa already controlled between a quarter and a third of Fnac Darty's share capital, ahead of Germany's Ceconomy, the group's second largest shareholder.
Ceconomy is in the process of coming under Chinese ownership, which is certainly the best thing that could have happened to it. That was all Daniel Kretinsky needed to launch his takeover bid on Fnac, framed as a defensive response to JD.com's assault.
Unanimously backed by Fnac's board of directors, the offer values the group at €36 per share - implying a market capitalisation of €900m and an enterprise value, excluding operating leases, of around €1.7bn.
The deal therefore values Fnac Darty at a multiple of about 7x EBITDA. It is worth noting that this metric has seen a controlled but nonetheless steady erosion since 2017 and the merger between Fnac and Darty.
At the time, shareholders pinned far too many hopes on this tie-up, which heralded the birth of a so-called ‘omnichannel' retail champion - a concept that, in practice, never truly took hold anywhere.
Facing intense competition from online commerce, both in household appliances and cultural products, the group has since been engaged in a structural race to the bottom that squeezes its prices and margins.
Known for its Prussian-barracks-style management - inherited from Fnac's culture - Fnac Darty has nonetheless remained a strong cash machine. This has enabled the group to deleverage, and thus survive, but not to reward shareholders with genuinely substantial dividends or share buybacks.
