OREANDA-NEWS. March 04, 2011. ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo, Masahiro Okafuji, President & CEO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) and ITOCHU Europe PLC (headquartered in London, UK; Takeshi Kumekawa, CEO) have agreed, subject to certain conditions, to acquire all the shares of the Kwik-Fit Group (hereinafter “Kwik-Fit” or “the Group”), an independent tyre retailer in the UK and Europe, from PAI Partners (hereinafter “PAI”), a European private equity firm. The agreed enterprise value is Ј637 million.

The acquisition is conditional upon approval from the European Competition Authorities and successful completion of the consultation process with its French Works Council.

Kwik-Fit, established in 1971, is an independent tyre retailer with Europe’s largest service point network comprising 1,218 directly-managed tyre fitting centres in the UK, France and Holland. The Group’s turnover in 2010 was Ј875 million, of which the Group’s major business, Kwik-Fit UK, with 673 centres, represented Ј561 million. Kwik-Fit is the market leader in the UK and Holland, trading under the well known brand name “Kwik-Fit”, as well as having a leadership position in the fleet business segment.

ITOCHU and its subsidiaries operate various tyre-related businesses globally. In the UK, ITOCHU operates STAPLETONS (TYRE SERVICES) LTD. (headquartered in Letchworth Garden City, UK; Kenji Murai, CEO hereinafter “STS”), a leading wholesaler, offering excellent delivery services and a wide range of products. STS also established its own retail network with 110 service points, the fourth largest number of outlets in the UK. Through this acquisition, ITOCHU will strive to enhance its tyre business by leveraging Kwik-Fit’s network and strong brand and STS’s strong logistics capability and its management know-how of retail operations to generate synergies among all tyre-related businesses of ITOCHU.