for-phone-onlyfor-tablet-portrait-upfor-tablet-landscape-upfor-desktop-upfor-wide-desktop-up

Germany's Douglas expands perfumery network further with Spanish deal

FRANKFURT, July 27 (Reuters) - German perfume and cosmetics retailer Douglas agreed on Thursday to buy up to 103 Perfumerias If outlets and their e-commerce platform from Eroski, further firming up its position in Spain only months after it bought perfumery chain Grupo Bodybell.

“The store network of Perfumerias If in the economically strong Basque region is an ideal addition to our combined Douglas and Bodybell businesses with virtually no overlap to our existing portfolio,” Douglas chief executive Isabelle Parize said in a statement on Thursday.

The deal is Douglas’s third major acquisition within a few months, after it bought Bodybell and Italian perfumery chains Limoni and La Gardenia. After adding the Perfumerias If stores, it will have a network of more than 2,400 perfumeries in 19 European countries.

Douglas did not say how much Douglas was paying for the stores, but it said it was financing the acquisition with a 300 million euro ($351.6 million) term loan extension it secured in June as well as with existing liquid funds.

Douglas is majority owned by private equity group CVC Capital Partners, which bought its stake in the retailer from U.S. buyout firm Advent in 2015 in a deal worth almost 3 billion euros.

$1 = 0.8532 euros Reporting by Maria Sheahan; Editing by Victoria Bryan

for-phone-onlyfor-tablet-portrait-upfor-tablet-landscape-upfor-desktop-upfor-wide-desktop-up