The Kreke family, founders of loss-making German retailer Douglas Holding AG, and private equity firm Advent International, today offered to buy the perfume-to-books retailer for €1.5 billion ($2 billion).

The takeover offer is being made by an investment vehicle Beauty Holding Three AG, where Advent owns 80 per cent stake and the Kreke family 20 per cent.

Under the terms of the offer, Beauty Holding is offering €38 per share, a premium of 9.2 per cent to Friday's closing price and 41.6 per cent over the four-week volume weighted average price of Douglas of €26.83 prior to the emergence of takeover rumors on 11 January.

Both Advent and the Kreke family said that Beauty Holding has already received acceptance of 50.5 per cent of the share capital of Douglas, but the offer is conditional on receiving 75 per cent acceptance.

Douglas CEO Henning Kreke and his family, who own 12.7 per cent stake in the company, had told shareholders in March that he would like to take Douglas private in partnership with a private equity investor.

The Oetker family, one of the richest families in Germany that owns the Dr. Oetker company and the largest shareholder in Douglas with a 25.8-per cent stake, and Erwin Mueller with 10.7 per cent, have agreed to tender their shares to the offer.

Hagen, Germany-based Douglas owns over 1,900 stores, more than 1,500 of which are in Germany and the US. It has more than 1,168 perfume stores in 18 European countries, according to its website. It also owns 295 ''Thalia'' book stores, 207 ''Christ'' jewellery stores 13 ''AppelrathCüpper'' fashion stores, and 245 ''Hussel'' confectionery shops.

Facing competition from online retailers such as Amazon, Douglas Holding had in March hired management consultants McKinsey to advise on restructuring Thalia chain of more than 200 book shops in Germany.

Traditional bookselling through book stores have taken a beating with the advent of digital publishing and the growth of the ebook market, and Thalia, like all other bookstore chains, have seen their revenues decline steadily in recent years.

Sales in Thalia bookstores in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, declined by 1.5 per cent, but overall sales revenues are up by 3.2 per cent with online sales accounting for 14 per cent of its total revenue due to Thalia launching its own ereader in 2011.

Earlier this year, French luxury apparels and accessories company LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA was said to have been in talks to buy Douglas Holding.