Discontinued operations
Chemical Specialities
The Chemical Specialities segment, consisting of the Schmid Rhyner and FoamPartner business units, was successfully divested in accordance with the Group’s transformation announced in December 2019.
Schmid Rhyner was already sold to the specialty chemicals group Altana, headquartered in Wesel, Germany, and deconsolidated at the end of February 2020.
FoamPartner was sold to Recticel, a Belgian polyurethane chemicals specialist based in Brussels and listed on Euronext (REC). The transfer of control and the corresponding deconsolidation took effect on March 31, 2021. The enterprise value of this transaction amounted to CHF 270 million. The net cash inflow from the divestment is CHF 252 million, of which the final payment of CHF 20.3 million will be made in January 2022.
Since Swiss GAAP FER stipulates that goodwill and conversion differences that have been offset against equity must be recorded in the profit or loss at the date of divestment, the transaction resulted in a divestment loss of CHF -78.5 million for the first half of 2021, which is reflected in the income statement under ”Other operating expenses”.
In the first quarter of 2021, the Chemical Specialities segment generated net sales of CHF 76.3 million (Q1 2020: CHF 73.8 million, including CHF 6.9 million from Schmid Rhyner), an increase of 3.4%. At constant exchange rates and adjusted for the change in the scope of consolidation, the sales growth was 13.4%. This is attributable to a visible recovery across all regions and the Mobility, Specialities and Living & Care segments.
Mammut
In accordance with the Group’s transformation announced in December 2019, the Mammut business unit was sold to Telemos Capital, headquartered in London, UK, for an enterprise value of CHF 230 million, including an earn-out structure of up to CHF 45 million. The transfer of control and the corresponding deconsolidation took effect on June 30, 2021.
The cash inflow from the transaction amounted to CHF 91.2 million and the divestment gain was CHF 0.5 million. Due to the estimated earn-out-relevant result as per December 31, 2021, no fair value for the earn-out has been included in the provisional divestment gain. As part of the transaction, the parties agreed on an interest-bearing vendor loan of CHF 60.0 million, which will be repaid by the purchaser by January 2027 at the latest.
In the first half of 2021, Mammut generated net sales of CHF 107.3 million (prior-year period: CHF 80.9 million), corresponding to a growth of 32.6%. Adjusted for exchange rates, sales increased by 32.9% compared to the prior-year period. Ongoing lockdowns across various regions in the first half of 2021 affected the physical sales channels consisting of specialist retailers and mono-brand stores, the dominant source of revenue. Despite this, the offline channels achieved good sales growth in the first half of 2021. Sales via the digital sales channels almost doubled year-on-year, building on the very strong growth momentum that already began in 2020.
Mammut has thus continued to execute its three-pillar strategy: promoting the
e-commerce business as the lead channel, establishing a sustainable supply chain despite certain challenges with the short-term availability of products and developing Mammut in the Nordics.