VIENNA (Thomson Financial) - Italy's Geox SpA is among the six bidders left as the sales process for the Austrian shoe chain Stiefelkoenig nears its conclusion, the Viennese daily Der Standard reported citing 'banking circles'.
According to the newspaper, Geox, Germany's Hamm-Reno Group GmbH & Co. KG, the Salamander unit of EganaGoldpfeil (Holdings) Ltd and three unnamed financial investors are the bidders with the best shot of purchasing Stiefelkoenig from the Austrian bank Bawag PSK.
Bawag, which is owned by a consortium headed by the American hedge fund Cerberus Capital Management L.P., expects to raise around 60 million euros by selling Stiefelkoenig, according to Der Standard.
Geox chief executive Diego Bolzonello said at the end of February that his group is not interested in acquiring Stiefelkoenig, which serves as Geox's franchise partner in Austria.
The Stiefelkoenig group, which operates 156 shops in Austria and an additional 29 shops in Slovenia, Slovakia and Croatia, posted sales of around 140 million euros in 2007, according to the information memorandum presented to potential bidders, Der Standard reported. peter.klopf@thomsonreuters.com pkl/sal COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Financial News Limited 2008. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of Thomson Financial News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Financial News.