Silver Lake, Berkshire Partners bid for retail database operator Catalina Marketing
27 Feb 2014
Private equity firms Silver Lake and Berkshire Partners have bid for Catalina Marketing, a sale through which its owner Hellman & Friedman hopes to net between $2 billion and $2.5 billion, Financial Times yesterday reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Both the bidders put in final offers in the past few days, the report said, saying the value of their bids could not be ascertained.
California-based PE firm Hellman & Friedman had taken Catalina private in 2007 for $1.7 billion. Early this year, it hired Bank of America to help in the sale process.
Catalina is the world's largest retail database operator handling data on more than 300 million retail transactions per week at any the grocery, drug, or mass-merchandise retail stores in the US, Europe, and Japan.
Catalina derives insight on the purchases made by customers through loyalty cards at any store and promotes targeted promotions and offers based on their past purchases. (More than 90 per cent customers use loyalty cards in the US, Europe, and Japan)
Catalina influences a consumer to purchase through mobile, online and in-store networks powered by its vast shopper history database.
It's personalised mobile display and video network reaches 70 million households, which influences 1 million shoppers, driving more than $1 billion in annual purchases.
Its clients include Coca-Cola, Kellogg's, Kraft Foods, PepsiCo, L'oreal, Procter & Gamble, Kmart, Kroger, Ralph's, Safeway, Stop & Shop, Target, Winn-Dixie and many others.
