Lingerie maker Hunkemoller invites further bids in sale

Suitors for Dutch lingerie maker Hunkemoller have been invited to submit another round of offers for the roughly 500 million euro ($560 million) company as the sale process enters the final phase, two sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

In July, several private equity groups including Sycamore and Carlyle handed in bids for the company, which employs Dutch model and TV personality Sylvie Meis in its marketing and has over 600 stores in 16 countries from Spain to Saudi Arabia. At the time, a buyer was expected to be picked within days.

But the offers had failed to meet the seller's expectations, several sources said.

At the same time, Hunkemoller's trading had proved stronger than initially expected with annualised earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of 52 million euros, one of the sources said.

In July, sources said the company's EBITDA was about 50 million euros.

One source familiar with the process said that bidders now had the chance to tweak offers taking into account the earnings update, and a decision was expected by early November.

While Sycamore and other buyout groups remain interested, Carlyle had dropped out, a third source said.

Listed retail fashion companies such as H&M, Inditex, Next, Fast and Marks and Spencer trade at an average of 13 times their expected core earnings. Hunkemoller's private equity owner PAI also hopes to sell at double-digit earnings multiple.

Banks have lined up around 450 million euros of debt to back a private equity buyout, according to banking sources.

PAI, Carlyle and Sycamore declined to comment.

$1 = €0.8932