Globitas acquires home-and-living retailer Casa

We're happy to announce the successful completion of our transaction to acquire, together with management, all of the shares in CASA from the Blokker Family. CASA is a leading pan-European retailer headquartered in Belgium. The group has close to €300m in revenue and about 3200 employees. With over 40 years of experience and almost 500 stores across 8 countries, CASA has grown to become an inspiring and leading player in the home-and-living sector. In countries like France, Belgium, Italy and Spain the brand is a household name.

Strong fundament for growth
CASA started in 2017 with the strategic plan CASA 20.20 aimed to regain their place as a leading player in the interior and decoration sector. The company has realised tremendous improvements in its product line-up and has given its store a full rebranding and make-over. In accordance with this business plan CASA was able to close the past financial year with a positive operating result for the first time in years, despite many Covid-19 related challenges. Retail revenues have rebounded strongly after the lockdown periods and online revenue is growing strongly. With €42bn of consumer savings set aside in 2020 in the Netherlands alone, a potential consumer spending spree is not far out of sight. 

Huge opportunities in e-Commerce
We aim to help CASA to continue to focus on the further growth of its retail revenues as well as on the expansion of its omni-channel activities. The European home-and-living market is almost €120bn in size, but just a small 5% share of that market is online. We intend to penetrate that market strongly and would look to catch up with other sectors, like fashion and electronics, where penetration is 3-5x higher. Home-and-living is currently the fastest growing e-Commerce segment.

“We are very pleased with the successful completion of this transaction”, says Arthur Clement, partner of Globitas. The acquisition of CASA fits perfectly into our strategy of adding value to companies with challenges by using a strong entrepreneurial spirit. We see many opportunities to help CASA make the transition to a strong pan-European omnichannel player in the home & living retail segment. In the past years, a strong foundation has been laid to be further built on and we are very much looking forward to working on this with the management. We would like to thank the Blokker family for their trust in Globitas to lead CASA to the next phase.”

Giane Van Landuyt, CEO of CASA: “Together with Globitas, we want to further accelerate the current growth of our omnichannel strategy in shops, e-commerce and B2B activities and realize our strategic plan. We would like to thank all our employees and stakeholders for their effort in the past years. My special thanks go to Albert Blokker for his never-ending belief in the resilience of our company. Together with all our CASA colleagues we will make it a success in the coming years".

“We would like to express our thanks to the management and the employees for their tireless effort in these past years, specifically with the challenges of the past Corona year. After more than 30 years, it is time for a new wind and we wish them a lot of success with the new shareholder”, says the Blokker family, former shareholder of CASA.

The Blokker family was advised in this transaction by EY M&A Belgium and A&O NL. Globitas was advised by Biesheuvel Jansen Lawyers and Atlas Tax.