Hong Kong’s supermarket chain ParknShop receives nine bids

Hong Kong-based supermarket chain ParknShop, which has been put on the block by its owner A S Watson & Co, controlled by Asia's richest man, Li Ka-shing, has received around nine bids.

Several media reports yesterday  said that ParknShop, one of two largest retail chains in Hong Kong, has attracted offers from several suitors including private-equity firms TPG Group and KKR & Co, local retailer China Resources Enterprise Ltd, Japan's Aeon Co and Lotte Group, Australia's Woolworths Ltd and Wesfarmers Ltd, and China's biggest hypermarket chain Sun Art Retail Group Ltd. 

Early this month, media reports said that Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, is working with a bank as it weighs its options for ParknShop.

In late July, Hutchison Whampoa Ltd, the investment holding company controlled by Li Ka-shing, said that its subsidiary Watson & Co is conducting a strategic review of its super market retail business ParknShop and had hired Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Merrill Lynch to handle the sale. (See: Hutchison Whampoa plans sale of ParknShop supermarket chain)

ParknShop is the market-leading food retailer in Hong Kong with significant market position in Macau and South China.

Founded in 1973, ParknShop is the second-largest grocery store chain in Hong Kong with a 19-per cent market share. It has 345 stores in Hong Kong, Macau and southern China and had revenues of HK$21.7 billion ($2.8 billion) in 2012.

Its main competitors are Wellcome, which operates 302 stores, has 15 per cent market share, according to Nielsen

Li Ka-shing, whose net worth is $27 billion, is seeking around $3 billion to $4 billion from the sale.