UK Media reports that pioneer retailer Planet Organic has appointed a leading London financial adviser has prompted speculation that the business is being prepared for sale.
The Daily Telegraph reported on 20 October that the London-based chain had hired Spayne Lindsay to “field buyer interest in a booming healthy-eating market”. The mergers and acquisition specialist has supervised several sales involving natural and organic businesses, including Clipper, Plum Organic, So Good and Dorset Cereals.
The Telegraph’s retail editor, Ashley Armstrong (a former M&A specialist) claims Planet Organic is “attracting interest from Japanese trade buyers and private equity firms, although management could opt to sell just a stake in the company.”
Planet Organic was founded in 1991 by Renée Elliott, an American who took as her cue the vibrant natural food retail scene in her home town of Boston.
The company operates seven stores across London. The retailer has been a consistently strong performer, continuing to grow through the 2007-12 recession, as Elliot and her team adopted a deliberate strategy to ignore organic’s apparently gloomy prospects (she told a conference in 2011 “unless it galvanises you, just ignore the big news. Sell your great organic products well and you’ll do well.”).
Last year the retailer broke through into the Grocer magazine’s ‘Top 50 Indies’, entering at number 24, with sales of just under £30 million. Analysts say the company is on track to deliver sales of £35m this year.
As well as its retail operation Planet Organic sells its own brand range of special diet foods into the wholesale and retail trades.
In the British capital, Planet Organic’s obvious high street close competitors are Whole Foods Market (which in 2004 bought the retailer’s former London rival Fresh & Wild) and the smaller As Nature Intended chain.