Hema

HEMA is an international retail organisation for food and non-food products.

HEMA distinguishes itself from other retailers by selling its own brand. In addition, HEMA develops its own assortment and likes to surprise customers with timely offers of products for daily use. HEMA products are typically convenient, practical and attractive and of good quality. HEMA is a centrally managed company. It consists of the Headquarters, the Bakery, the Distribution Centre and Sales. It has stores in most of the larger cities in the Netherlands.

HEMA is founded in 1926, part of Koninklijke Bijenkorf Beheer (KBB) which merged with Vendex in 1999 and later operated under the name Maxeda (with KKR as private equity investor). HEMA was the first part of the Maxeda-group to be sold. It was bought by Lion Capital in 2007. Now HEMA has 450 shops in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, France and Germany.

Together with Lion Capital, HEMA wants to expand to at least two other European countries and make HEMA an even stronger brand name. Therefore HEMA recently developed two new services (insurance and fair trade) en invested more in training and development of its employees. Also HEMA started to open stores in smaller cities.

Investor: Lion Capital, since 2007
Sector: Retail
Employees: approx. 10,000
Shops: 450 (53 new in 2008: 44 in NL, 6 in B, 2 in L, 1 in F) – approx. 40% franchise
Locations: Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, France, Germany

Results 2008
Return: EUR 1.1 bn (+4%)
EBITA: EUR 132 mln (+16.5%)
Profit: -EUR 15 mln
Cashflow: EUR 33 mln
Debt: EUR 762.3 mln (bank) + EUR 270 mln (Lion Capital)
Interest on loan: 114.4 mln (62.2 bank, 52.2 Lion Capital)