Bryan, Garnier & Co advises Telemarket’s shareholders on the disposal to Systeme U

Paris, May 25th 2011 – Bryan, Garnier & Co, the independent pan-European Investment bank focusing on growth companies, announces the completion of the disposal of Telemarket.fr, the pioneering online food retailer, to Systeme U, 4th largest French food retailer.

Created in 1985, Telemarket.fr is the world pioneer and a leading French online food retailer with the largest market share in the Paris area. The company was acquired in 2005 from Galeries Lafayette by Roland Coutas, (former founder and CEO of Travelprice, sold in 2003 to lastminute.com), and a consortium of Private Equity investors and family offices including AGF Private Equity (Meetic, Dailymotion, Deezer, Viadeo, Sarenza…) and CITA (AlloCine, 1001 Listes, Kelkoo, Sport, Travelprice…).

Systeme U, a French cooperative food retailer with more than € 20 billion of retail sales and more than 1400 shops, has made what is considered as a critical strategic move for its development in the Paris area. Thanks to the acquisition, Telemarket will immediately enable Systeme U to cater to the highly competitive Paris catchment area, where it had limited market share so far, and creates for the retailer an additional distribution channel. In addition, Systeme U should rapidly generate additional revenues and gross margin using its own central platform to supply Telemarket.

The transaction has taken place in a favorable market environment for e-commerce, and a growing recent interest for food retailing, as illustrated by the initiatives led in that field by Amazon, or the success of Ocado’s financial strategy on the London stock market.

François Arpels, Managing Director and Head of the Consumer & Specialty Retail franchise at Bryan, Garnier & Co, said : “This transaction illustrates our unique knowledge of both the e-commerce and traditional retail markets and our ability to build bridges between the leading players of those two worlds. It also demonstrates that e-commerce is now a key strategic advantage for traditional retailers operating in highly competitive environments.”

“Alongside Technology Media & Telecom, Healthcare and Cleantech, Consumer & Specialty Retail is a key sector franchise for Bryan, Garnier & Co on which we have been investing across our different activities. This transaction illustrates our growing footprint in that domain.”, states Greg Revenu, co-founder and Managing Partner of Bryan, Garnier & Co.

Bryan, Garnier & Co acted as exclusive financial adviser to the selling shareholders.

For more information, please contact:

• François Arpels / Managing Director / Head of Consumer & Specialty Retail / +33 1 70 36 57 43 / farpels@bryangarnier.com
• Marc Goudemand / Principal / +33 1 70 36 57 15 / mgoudemand@bryangarnier.com

Bryan Garnier & Co’s recent transactions:

• May 2011: Sale of Modelabs (MDL) to Bigben Interactive (BIG) (pending)
• May 2011: Acquisition of AES Chemunex by BioMerieux (pending)
• May 2011: IPO of Concoursmania (ALGCM)
• April 2011: Public to Private of Metrologic (MGT) led by the Carlyle Group (62% controling block followed by tender offer)
• April 2011: Buy out of DCI by its Management Team, LBO France & Capzanine