Foschini Group makes R480m offer to buy Edcon’s ‘viable’ JET stores

The Foschini Group (TFG) says it has submitted a conditional offer to acquire Edcon’s business rescue practitioners to acquire some of the stores and assets of JET.

In the offer submitted on Friday, TFG offered Edcon R480 million to acquire a minimum of 371 commercially viable JET stores.

Edcon, which owns Edgars and JET Stores, announced in late April that it would file for voluntary business rescue after the nationwide lockdown exacerbated its already dire financial position. In June, its BRPs said the only way to save the company and the jobs of its thousands of its employees was through an “accelerated sale” of its divisions to interested parties.

TFG, which has been growing its local manufacturing capacity, said the proposed deal also comes with JET’s distribution centre located in Durban and certain stores in Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Eswatini. The company is looking to also acquire JET Club and all existing JET stock of no less than R800 million.

“Edcon’s business rescue practitioners have accepted the terms of TFG’s conditional offer. TFG has been granted exclusivity to negotiate and finalise the terms and conclude the Proposed Transaction,” wrote the fashion retailer in a statement issued on Monday morning.

Analysts have long speculated that JET will probably be one division of Edcon that buyers will find interesting.

The BRPs announced last Tuesday they had signed an agreement to sell parts of Edgars to Retailability, another fashion retailer that owns the brands Legit, Beaver Canoe and Style.

TFG said JET’s brand recognition and market share would provide it with a strategically important expansion into the “value segment” of the Southern African retail apparel market.

“The proposed transaction enables TFG to acquire selected parts of the JET business, a unique opportunity which previously was not possible and is expected to give TFG significant scale at an attractive price,” wrote TFG.

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