The chief executive says co-owners' difficulties have had no impact on the retail multiple, writes PAUL CULLEN

IRISH-OWNED FOOD retailer Superquinn is not for sale and no one has come looking to buy it “in a long, long time”, according to its chief executive.

Simon Burke says previous conversations with multinational suitors never led to anything, and the retailer was not currently seeking a buyer. “If someone were to knock on our door tomorrow and I thought they were convincingly interesting, I think I would talk to them. It doesn’t go beyond that. There have been no such conversations in a long, long time,” he told The Irish Times in an interview.

Burke said he had has not talked to potential buyers, rumoured to include Asda, Sainsbury and Tesco, for over a year, other than polite exchanges at industry functions.

Select Retail Holdings (SRH), which paid a reported €450 million to buy the multiple from Feargal Quinn in 2005, is a consortium owned by Burke and a number of now heavily indebted business figures, including developer Jerry O’Reilly, property consultants David Courtney and Bernard Doyle, and hotelier Terry Sweeney.

Burke says the well-publicised difficulties of some of his co-owners has had no impact on Superquinn, or on their relative shareholdings. “Their financial arrangements are their own business, I don’t inquire into them. They have no effect on our banking either.”

Superquinn and its cash flow is not being used to prop up other businesses owned by members of SRH, he says. “No money coming into Superquinn is going to any shareholder or any other business, and any money is being redeployed in Superquinn.”

Burke says he looked for and was given assurances from his business partners that the retailer would not be drawn into the National Asset Management Agency (Nama). “Nama won’t make any difference as far as I know. I asked the question whether Superquinn would be directly involved in any Nama process, and I was assured there was no question of that.”

As a privately owned company, Superquinn does not publish accounts, but Burke says it is trading well. “We’re not losing money, in fact we’re better than we thought we would be.”

Superquinn shed 400 jobs last year and closed its loss-making store in Dundalk, but Burke says the chain has no plans for more redundancies.

He says he would close another store if it was unviable and there was no prospect of turning it around. This was the case with Dundalk, but all other stores were performing well enough.

“They are making a return. The level of return is mixed, but I’m willing to stick with anything that will make me a contribution.”

Talks with the unions on pay are due to start again soon, following last year’s pay freeze. At this stage, the Superquinn boss won’t declare his hand – other than to stress the difficulties of operating in a deflationary market.

Despite the battering taken by all retailers over the past year, he says Superquinn hasn’t given up on expansion, and hopes to open “one or two” new stores this year.

A number of Superquinn projects, such as those at Heuston, Merrion and Rathgar in Dublin, and Naas, have failed to open in the timeframe promised, but Burke says the retailer remains committed to its “valuable pipeline” of sites.

As for its existing stock of 23 stores, “this isn’t the moment to be investing in fancy shop fittings”.

Superquinn is rebuilding its business based on the core value of wide product range, high quality food and “a bit extra” in service, he says. Features such as fresh meat and salad counters will remain, as will instore baking and bag-packers. “We had our heads turned by the depths of crisis and might have been accused of losing sight of some of those things in the rush to value,” he says.

Superquinn’s traditional reputation as a high-end retailer spelt trouble when the recession arrived, and it has struggled to withstand the onslaught of value-conscious shoppers, the discounters and the cross-Border exodus. Market share has dipped below 7 per cent, less than Lidl and Aldi combined.

Burke admits they were anything up to 25 per cent dearer when he arrived from toy retailer Hamleys five years ago. Today, though, he claims Superquinn is “thereabouts” with rivals on price.