Contract gains add to Nuance sale value

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The Nuance Group's two recent contract gains at Singapore Changi and Copenhagen Kastrup airports will add significant value to the company's sale price, when the auction to sell the operator begins.

Parent company Swissair announced earlier today that it would sell a majority stake or the entire company by early 2002.

Informed observers believe Swissair will have been awaiting the results of the most recent tenders before triggering the auction, given that the value of a duty-free operator lies almost solely in the quality and duration of its tenders. So the timing of the sale appears apt.

Yet it remains uncertain who will buy Nuance, and at what price. BAA has yet to divest its World Duty Free Americas arm, despite declaring it non-core earlier this year. And an attempt to sell Alpha Retail failed two years ago.

Harvey Lipsith, who is chief executive officer of Allders, the UK department store group that sold its duty-free arm to Swissair, said the decision to sell was no surprise. "The new management has decided on a new strategy, concentrating on the core business," he said. "Diversification, a fundamental strategic plank of the old management, obviously failed."

• Further reaction and comment appears in the September 1 issue of Duty-Free News International, out next week.