The European Commission today announced the green light for the acquisition of the Italian company Stroili Oro by the French Thom. Both companies are active in the retail jewelery sector, through networks of points of sale located mainly in their respective countries.
Precisely this separate distribution of the stores between Italy and France, according to the Commission, makes it possible to approve the operation without fearing competition problems, given that the combined market shares of the two companies, after the merger, will remain largely limited to the Italian-French geography.
Among the shareholders leaving Stroili, the most significant is Andrea Bonomi's Investindustrial.
Stroili has 389 directly managed points of sale and is present in another thousand, distributed in twenty countries between Europe, the USA and China. In the twelve months ended 31 March 2016 it had a turnover of approximately 230 million euros with a gross operating margin of 34 million.
Thom Europe is the leader in Europe by number of stores and among the top five jewelery and watch chains by revenues: 387 million in the year, with an operating margin of 78 million.
