[imagesource: Yuppiechef / Facebook]

This morning, news broke that Mr Price has reached an agreement to buy 100% of Yuppiechef, for what is a rather tidy sum of money.

Consider that Yuppiechef was, according to its ‘About Us‘ page, “founded in 2006 by two good friends, selling just 32 kitchen products online, from a lounge in Plumstead”.

Then consider that the 100% sale agreement was reached for around R470 million in cash, and you’re looking at some lovely paydays for 15 years of hard work.

The news broke after Mr Price issued an announcement relating to the acquisition, which you can read in full here.

This summary comes via TechCentral:

The deal, Mr Price said, will allow it to target a higher LSM customer base. It added that the deal meets its “strict investment criteria”, which guide its “capital allocation decisions and these have been applied with the same disciplined approach in the case of Yuppiechef”.

The exact value of the deal has not been disclosed, but Mr Price said the purchase consideration represents about 1% of its R47-billion market capitalisation, or R470-million…

Mr Price CEO Mark Blair said the deal gives Mr Price “the opportunity to access the skills of a highly talented team and to service a new customer base”.

Following the announcement, Yuppiechef released a statement addressing what this means for the company’s loyal customers.

The fact that co-founders Andrew Smith and Shane Dryden will still be leading the company was made clear, along with pointing out that the same teams and managers will remain in place:

We’re going to carry on pushing our service levels as high as they can be, from our same offices and warehouse in our corner of Cape Town, with the same awesome people in them.

And we’ll keep bringing you high quality kitchen and home finds that excite and inspire us and you, and sharing them wherever it suits you best, whether online or in-store.

The Yuppiechef statement says the buyout by Mr Price means “more support in achieving our vision”:

They [Mr Price] have no intention to change the things our customers enjoy about us most – we’ll be keeping our respective brands, target markets and operations separate from those in the rest of the group.

When it comes to things like opening more stores (to give more of you the chance to browse the best of our range in person) and continuously growing our product ranges, we’ll have more help to do bigger and more exciting things.

The statement goes on to say that the deal still needs to be approved by the Competition Commission.

[sources:techcentral&yuppiechef]