Germany's Hornbach and French company Leroy Merlin are mentioned as possible buyers.
Maxeda DIY, the parent company of the Dutch DIY chain Praxis, among others, is considering the sale of the Belgian stores.
This concerns 138 stores of the Brico's, BricoCity's and BricoPlanits retail formulas, which are also active in Luxembourg. They are all DIY stores.
Various financial media report this. Maxeda DIY does not want to confirm the reports. The company is the market leader in the Benelux in the do-it-yourself shopping segment.
Maxeda DIY owns a total of 344 stores. The group's annual turnover amounts to more than one and a half billion euros. The EBITDA amounted to 107 million euros in the financial year 2022-2023; the profit before tax was 34 million euros.
Since 2015, Maxeda DIY has been owned by the American Goldentree Asset Management and the French investor Ardian. They then converted debt into shares. KKR, one of the owners at the time, is still a shareholder.
Financial media speculate that French, German or British DIY chains will take over the Brico stores, although there are no signals of this yet. Reference has already been made to the French company Leroy Merlin, which has at least a presence in Belgium with six branches.
The German Hornbach is also mentioned. That chain has 171 stores in eight European countries. More than ten years ago, Hornbach wanted to move to Belgium, but this plan never got off the ground.
