Gokongwei buying Rustan grocery chain

Robina Gokongwei-Pe

Gokongwei-led Robinsons Retail Holdings Inc. (RRHI) has expanded its retailing empire with the P18-billion deal to acquire grocery chain operator Rustan Supercenters.

Rustans Supercenters operates food retail brands “Marketplace by Rustan’s”, “Rustan’s Supermarket”, “Shopwise Hypermarket”, “Shopwise Express” and “Wellcome”.

The respective boards of RRHI and Mulgrave Corp. B.V (MCBV) approved the acquisition by RRHI of MCBV’s 100-percent stake in Rustan Supercenters through a share-swap deal, RRHI disclosed to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Friday.

RRHI, led by its president Robina Gokongwei-Pe, will pay for the shares of Rustan Supercenters using its own stocks as currency. This means that London-listed Dairy Farm will become a partner of the Gokongwei group in the food retail business.

MCBV is a wholly-owned member of Dairy Farm International Holdings Ltd. group of companies. MCBV previously acquired Rustan Supercenters from the Tantoco family, which has since then focused on speciality retailer SSI Group.

Certain members of the Gokongwei family intend to sell some of their shares which will result in the Gokongweis effectively owning 51 percent of the expanded capital of RRHI.

After the completion of the secondary sale tranche, Dairy Farm, through MCBV, will own 18.25 percent of RRHI.

“Leveraging the combined strengths of RRHI and RSCI will lead to benefits to customers in terms of even better service, quality and value,” the disclosure said.

This transaction is intended to be completed once the necessary approvals are obtained from the shareholders of RRHI, the Philippine Competition Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission.