Tomasz Biernacki hasn’t done any major media interview since his car accident ten years ago.
Tomasz Biernacki doesn’t want attention.
The Polish businessman, 46, has not done any major media interview since his Ferrari F430 crashed more than ten years ago. He did not go public when his company went public in 2017, and his management team is rejecting requests from investors to meet in Warsaw, asking them instead to visit the company’s headquarters some 310 kilometers away ( 193 miles) from the capital.
But there is a lot of interest in its business, food retailer Dino Polska SA. The stock has rallied a record 88% this year, among the biggest winners in the Stoxx Europe 600 index, as many traditional retailers battle the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. For Dino, who focuses on rural areas, the lockdown to stop the spread of Covid-19 has boosted sales even further.
“Dino’s investors don’t seem moved that they can’t meet the founder of the company,” Wood & Co. analyst Lukasz Wachelko said by phone. “Some of them haven’t even seen a Dino store at all, but the way the company has handled the pandemic gives the owner additional credibility.”
He took Biernacki’s fortune to $ 3.6 billion, closing the gap with Poland’s richest person, synthetic rubber mogul Michal Solowow, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Biernacki is known for his frugality, rejecting calls for additional staff or expenses. His official biographies on the company’s website and flyer do not provide any information about his training or activities prior to founding Dino more than two decades ago – years after the collapse of communism, entrepreneurs had the first opportunity to benefit from the country’s economic transformation.
Biernacki declined a request for comment for this story in accordance with the company’s information policy, said Grzegorz Urazinski, Dino’s head of investor relations.
Dino, founded in 1999, was on a winning streak even before Covid-19 accelerated its growth.
Annual profit has more than tripled since 2015 and its store network has grown 12-fold in less than a decade. When the pandemic triggered a lockdown, buyers flocked to its outlets to stock items including canned goods, shelf-stable milk, soap and basic cosmetics. The company, which does not offer online delivery services, said this month it could increase its margins as it expands into Poland.
A slower pace of new store openings is the biggest risk to Dino’s valuation, but for now, investors are enjoying the rapid growth and are willing to pay a premium for stocks, said Piotr Bogusz, analyst at MBank SA. Dino is trading at 36 times estimated earnings for next year, compared to around 20 times for peers Jeronimo Martins SGPS SA and Eurocash SA, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Biernacki opened his first store in Gostyn, a town in western Poland, and soon realized he could move forward with neighborhood locations rather than compete with the big city giants. . After purchasing a meat processing plant in 2003, Dino has become a magnet for customers looking for fresh produce.
When Poland’s oldest private equity fund, Enterprise Investors, acquired a 49% stake in 2010, the retailer expanded further and invested in new logistics centers. Its local supermarkets provided all the necessary products and quickly became an alternative to large hypermarkets. The red and green Dino logo has become ubiquitous in western Poland and the company has gradually established itself in other regions.
Enterprise Investors sold its stake through an initial public offering seven years later, just as Polish retailers received a boost from new state grants for families. For investors, Dino was the perfect proxy for the country’s booming consumer staples market. Jeronimo Martins, which operates the country’s largest supermarket chain, had exposure to then-struggling Portugal and Colombia, while grocery wholesaler Eurocash faced structural problems in the small independent stores it supplied.
Since its debut in 2017, Dino shares have grown almost eightfold, bringing the company’s market value to $ 7 billion. As of September 30, the retailer had 1,371 stores, up from 775 at the end of 2017, and owns the land where they are located.
“The company operates a niche of less urbanized areas where competition is much lower and where customers benefit from increased disposable income supported by minimum wage growth and social stimulus programs,” said Krzysztof Kawa, analyst at Ipopema Securities SA.
He predicts that the number of stores could triple in the long run. “Dino is constantly pushing the boundaries.”
