Booker in £140m deal for Makro

For Booker, which focuses on caterers and independent retailers, the £140m cash and share deal will expand its reach with the hotels, restaurants and small and medium-sized businesses that are the usual customers of Makro UK.

“That will help us become the UK’s leading wholesaler not just in food but also non-food,” chief executive Charles Wilson said.

Mr Wilson said the deal would increase revenue at Booker, which has a 12-13 per cent share of the £30bn wholesale market, by around 20 per cent from its current level of £3.9bn.

Makro’s 30 British stores offer 29,000 products, compared with Booker’s 172 stores offering 8,500 products.

Metro will receive £15.8m and a 9.99 per cent stake in Booker, which it said it would look to keep beyond a 12-month lock-up period.

“This deal brings additional scale, takes a major player out of the market, adds a large number of customers and stock keeping units and brings a relationship with Metro,” Peel Hunt analyst Charles Hall said.

Metro had most recently tried to improve the fortunes of Makro UK, which had a 2 per cent market share, by appointing new management last summer.

“Makro sales and earnings have declined now for a number of years. Market trends were largely missed and transforming the business model was not as successful as other places in Europe,” Metro chief executive Olaf Koch said.