Holland & Barrett sold for £1.8bn to Russian billionaire

[helvella]

Will this be good or bad news? I don't know - but people tend not to put up large amounts of money, like £1.8bn, without having a good idea they will make a healthy return on it.

Holland & Barrett sold for £1.8bn to Russian billionaire

Holland & Barrett, the UK's biggest health food retailer, is being bought by a Russian billionaire for £1.8bn.

L1 Retail, a fund controlled by Mikhail Fridman, is buying the chain from US private equity firm Carlyle.

Carlyle acquired Nuneaton-based Holland & Barrett as part of its $3.8bn (£3bn) purchase in 2010 of US firm Nature's Bounty, now NBTY.

The chain, which has more than 1,300 stores worldwide, is expected to change hands in September.

Holland & Barrett was founded by William Holland and Alfred Barrett in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, in 1870.

They initially sold groceries and clothing, but later split the two into separate businesses. The grocery business was sold to Alfred Button & Sons in the 1920s, but the original name was retained.

The company eventually started focusing on health foods and changed hands several times. It now employs more than 4,000 people.

"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," said L1 Retail managing partner Stephan DuCharme.

"We believe that the company is well positioned to benefit from structural growth in the growing £10bn health and wellness market and has multiple levers for long-term growth and value creation."

More information at link:

bbc.co.uk/news/business-404...

Guardian's version of same story:

theguardian.com/business/20...

[Fruitandnutcase]

At risk of sounding negative and depressing I'd have to say that when I heard that on the news at breakfast time I said to my other half that i thought that it really didn't bode well 😢 I'll be glad if I'm proved wrong though.

Nothing like the big boys coming along, taking over a good company, changing the ethos, pretty much trashing it, then selling it on. I know, my husband sometimes says I'm so cynical and I don't think he means that as a compliment.

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

I wouldn't touch H & B own brand supplements with someone else's dirty barge pole anyway, they're at the bottom of the heap along with other cheap, nasty supplements full of rubbish.

The American owners supply arms and that never sat well with me.

Maybe it will be a good move, who knows.

[Fruitandnutcase in reply to SeasideSusie]

I buy my magnesium flakes for my bath there. I also buy nuts and that sort of thing, they sell my vitamin D spray too. So it looks like I tend not to buy their own brand stuff, they use cyanocobalamin in their B12 so that's out for me.

I didn't know they were now owned by an American company who sell arms. So much of the UK is now owned by foreign companies, kind of sad really. I'm not sure we make / own anything these days.

[FleureDee]

I really like Holland and Barett, I hope that does not change.

[Angel_of_the_North]

Well, as it's the biggest name in UK vitamin etc supplments, it's probably a good buy for him. Their products fell in quality the last time it was sold and have risen in price (when there isn't a sale) so I rarely buy anything there these days. Let's be optimistic and hope that there is a rise in quality - be hard to be much worse at those prices.