DNB has lost 250 million on the low-price chain Nille after they took over and had to pay well over a hundred million this spring to keep the chain alive.
Nille was a success for many years, when the Aarskog family, who founded Nille, owned the low-price chain. But things went badly for British owners, and DNB owns 94 percent of the chain through its investment division.
In the spring of 2018, DNB had to take over Nille, which owed DNB a lot of money, and the then owners would not spit in more. The British acquisition fund BC Partners threw away the cards just over two years ago.
DNB started in the autumn of 2018 with a restructuring of Nille, and the board of the low-price chain writes in the annual report that this process continued last year. This resulted in the second half of the year with a positive growth in comparable business.
Read also: Nille has lost NOK 700 million in two years
Let down shops
Last year, Nille maintained total operating revenues with a marginal decrease to NOK 710 million. There was a decrease in turnover in sales revenues of 2.9 per cent to 685 million, which is due to the closure of unprofitable stores at the customer Nille Store Operations.
Nille boss Kjersti Hobøl stated to Nettavisen in November 2018 that they had too many stores, 370, and that went against the closure of some of them,
And the chain managed to reduce costs from NOK 899 million to NOK 763 million, but there was still an operating loss of NOK 52 million. It is after all an improvement from a staggering 182 million in minus the year before.
But DNB had to see that Nille’s deficit before tax last year was NOK 55 million, down from 195 million in 2018. The total deficit for the two years is thus a quarter of a billion, after even worse losses in previous years.
In violation
And from the annual report it appears that from May 2020, Nille and DNB have contributed with group contributions of NOK 143 million to liquidity.
The loan limit is valid until 2020, and DNB has also granted Nille relief in the loan terms, as Nille was in breach of these. At the end of last year, Nille had a total debt of NOK 404 million.
DNB is positive about the restructuring plans and will during the year have a dialogue with Nille about further financing after the turn of the year.
Then came the corona
According to the annual report, the positive development continued in January and February this year before the corona pandemic led to a closure of Norway three weeks before Easter.
But Easter is high season, and Nille, unlike her competitors, chose to stay open at Easter.
In addition, the Nille management reacted quickly with redundancies as a result of sales failures and delivery problems. The corona crisis has therefore affected Nille less than other retail activities.
Insecure deliveries
Nille imports large parts of the product range from Asia, and it is uncertain about these deliveries this summer. The corona crisis temporarily puts Nile back somewhat, which means that the restructuring will take a little longer.
Nille was established back in 1966 at Gran on Hadeland by Per-Mathias Aarskog, who died in 2018. The head office today is at Trollåsen in Nordre Follo municipality. The main focus area is wholesale of gifts and equipment to shops.
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