Lindex Group: Strategic assessment of department stores is still ongoing

Translation: Original published in Finnish on 6/27/2025 at 12:40 noon EEST.  Corrected on June 27, at 3:55 pm, as mentioned in the first paragraph.

Lindex announced today that it is continuing the exploration of strategic options for its department store business, a process initiated in fall 2023, and will report the results by the end of the year (Corrected from earlier wording "expects to complete"). The company had already once extended the schedule from the end of 2024 to the end of H1’25. In our view, it still seems likely that the company is trying to exit the department store business, although it is not certain that this will be successful. The company also commented that the conclusion of the restructuring process is related to the strategic review. Thus, we expect the sale of department stores to finally materialize during Q4’25, once the completion of the restructuring process has been confirmed in court in Q3. 

The results of the strategic assessment are still pending

The company announced over 18 months ago that it would launch a strategic review of its department store business, the Stockmann division. In practice, we believe that the continuation of the review means that the process of selling the department store operations is in progress. If the company were to plan to retain the department store operations within the group, little additional time would likely be needed to announce the decision, nor would the status of the restructuring process have any impact on the decision. We believe the company could well have also announced that the strategic review has concluded in the sale of the department store business. The company has, however, remained very tight-lipped during the process, so it may be that it will only announce the matter if/when an agreement on the sale of the department store business has been made. Naturally, the question also is whether a buyer/acquirer can be found for the department stores on terms suitable for Lindex. One strong candidate for this, in our opinion, is Lindex's current majority owner, Nordic Retail Partners, but there may also be other potential buyers. We continue to believe that the most likely outcome is an exit from the department stores, although of course this is far from certain.

Settlement approved in court, restructuring expected to conclude during Q3

Lindex also announced that the settlement for the last disputed restructuring debt, which was previously announced in June, had now been approved by the District Court. This is largely a formality, but now Lindex can pay the compensation agreed upon in the settlement, and the restructuring process can move towards its official conclusion. This also still requires a District Court decision, which the company expects during Q3.