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Maxima Grupė that manages retail chains in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria and Poland, has acquired the largest e-commerce company for food and other products in Lithuania – Barbora. This grown-up and developed start-up, delivering Maxima goods in Vilnius, will be integrated with other Maxima Grupė’s e-commerce companies in Latvia and Estonia.

This deal will not affect Barbora’s quality of service, assortment of products or price. Successful management team will continue to lead the company. 

“Barbora is a leader in its field. It has developed justifying business model, loyal customers’ base and high consumer trust.  Generally, we believe that e-commerce business is up-and-coming. We see this in Latvia and Estonia where e-commerce channel is consistently growing,” says Alvydas  Šustikas, Maxima Grupė’s Chairman of the Board and CEO.

“Experience of Barbora demonstrates that separately developed e-commerce field grows faster. Thus, Barbora will operate as a separate business unit in Maxima Grupė and we want to continue strengthening it. We are going not only to expand into other cities in Lithuania, but also integrate into Barbora’s activities already working e-Maxima’s companies in Latvia and Estonia,” says A. Šustikas.

According to A. Šustikas, Barbora and Maxima LT have formed a strategic partnership so acquisition of former company is logical solution helping to achieve greater synergy in business.

“Approximately 90% of all startups fail because of self-destruction. This means that the biggest part of startups goes bankrupt not because of market conditions or lack of success, but because of their developers’ lack of preparedness, bad business decisions and improper assessment of the risks. Also, very important factor is proper evaluation of the startup development phase,” – one of the Barbora’s founders Ignas Staškevičius explains decision to sell the company.

“Barbora’s increase over the past few years is impressive. This is a great example of how to develop a small, dynamic company and refine its business model. Currently, Barbora covers only Vilnius area, but it is clear that quality of new development stage has been reached and now there is a need to expand the company's business geography. At this stage of expansion we need to reach scale effect and for that we need greater capital and full backing. Therefore, the decision to sell the company has been made“, I. Staškevičius says.

Maxima Grupė acquired 100% shares of JSC Radas controlling 100% of company Barbora. These shares were sold for the market price set by independent asset valuation by Nerijus Numavičius controlling JSC Tema Holdings and Ignas Staškevičius, controlling JSC Kalpa. 95% and 5% of shares were owned by the shareholders accordingly.

The value of the transaction is 1.4 million EUR.