Family business | Dairy Farm buys San Miu supermarkets for MOP1.3 billion

1-renato-marques-hoto-29-3-15-22-09-29The Dairy Farm Company has acquired the Macau-­based supermarket operator, San Miu Supermarket Ltd for MOP1.3 billion patacas, a source told the Times.
The sale was announced last week by the parent company Dairy Farm International Holdings in a disclosure to the Singapore stock exchange, without details of the money involved in the transaction.
Currently, San Miu operates 15 mass-market supermarkets with an average gross store size of 9,500 sqft. The company was set up in 1990 and opened its first shop in 1998 in the populous Iao Hon district in northern Macau. From 2008 to 2013, the company enjoyed a period of great expansion as a result of the gaming and tourism boom in the region. San Miu owns two trading companies for imports, exports and wholesale and has two offices in the Zhuhai municipality. According to its website, the company also operates a 50,000 sqft warehouse, a bakery factory and an egg plant, having more than 400 employees overall.
San Miu Supermarket Ltd is wholly owned by a local Chinese family. Upon the patriarch’s death, the company – which has a share capital of only MOP500,000 –  was inherited by the widow and the three siblings born of the marriage. Following a local tradition, the eldest son owns the lion’s share, which is 80 percent of the whole business, our sources revealed.
San Miu (新苗, which means “new seeding” in Chinese) is the second largest supermarket chain in Macau after Royal Group, holds a 15% share of the mass-market supermarket business, which grossed around 4 billion patacas in 2014, according to the latest statistics. San Miu will operate under the Wellcome brand, the second largest supermarket chain in Hong Kong and the leader in online grocery shopping.
“The acquisition of San Miu reinforces Dairy Farm’s retail presence in Macau, and complements its well-established convenience store and health and beauty businesses in the territory,” Dairy Farm said in the abovementioned regulatory filing to the Singapore stock exchange last Wednesday.
According to the 2013 annual report, reviewed by MDT, the pan-Asian retail giant owns in Macau 44 7-Eleven outlets, 16 Mannings’ stores and 8 Maxim’s restaurants.
Dairy Farm International Holdings, along with its associates and joint ventures, operates more than 6,100 retail outlets in Asia, including supermarkets, hypermarkets, convenience stores, health and beauty stores, home furnishing stores, and restaurants. The company, a member of the Jardine Matheson Group, has a primary listing in London and a secondary listing in Singapore. It is also incorporated in Bermuda.
Brook Yang contributed to this report.

Categories Macau