British Wolseley is to sell the Danish DIY chain Silvan to Aurelius Equity-Opportunities. The transaction is to close before the end of the third quarter and Silvan is to be spun off in the coming months.
Silvan employs about 1,400 workers at 42 DIY shops and one online shop in Denmark. Aurelius said that Silvan is Denmark’s leading DIY brand. By contrast, Wolseley put the chain at just third place on the domestic market in its final report for the 2015/2016 financial year (31 July) and thus in a weaker position than Wolseley’s other activities in Scandinavia, which are pooled in the Nordic region.
This division ended the 2015/2016 financial year with an upturn in revenues to £1.881bn. The biggest division, Stark Denmark, which sells wood, building materials and tools to industrial customers and end customers in Denmark, contributed 37% of revenues. Silvan is responsible for 9% of division revenues, translating into a total of roughly £169m. Some 23% of turnover came from the Swedish retail chain Bejer, 25% from Stark Finland and 6% from Neumann in Norway.