Tesco Kipa announced that it initiated acquisition talks with Uyum, an Istanbul-based food retail chain operating 55 stores. In mid-June, 10% of the company's unlisted shares were sold at a price of TRY 20.0mn, implying a total equity value of TRY 200.4mn. Currently, the stock is trading at a total Mcap of TRY 205mn, based on a share price of TRY 3.41.Thus, were we to take the latest transaction as a benchmark (which would not be an off-approach, since there has not been a radical change in the company in the last five months), there seems to be no upside. However, since Tesco will likely take full control of the company, rather than 10%, and will likely pay a control premium, a higher transaction value could be anticipated. Please note that such a scenario would trigger a mandatory tender offer.

If we value the company with an EV/Sales multiple of 1.0x, which is well above the implied transaction multiples observed in previous deals (i.e. 0.4-0.9x), then we would arrive at a target Mcap of TRY 280mn (i.e. ~TRY 4.66/share), representing 37% upside from current levels. However, higher than 1.0x EV/Sales would be surprising for us, while even 1.0x could be argued as quite optimistic, in our view. The markets first reaction was quite positive for Uyum (i.e. a 6.3% increase), while our first impression is that the stock does not promise huge upside potential.

Source: bne