Blackstone acquires majority stake in Greek e-commerce leader Skroutz for $746M

What's the deal? Blackstone has agreed to acquire a majority stake in Skroutz, Greece's leading e-commerce marketplace, from CVC Capital PartnersDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. The deal values Skroutz at $746M (€635M) including debt, according to people familiar with the matter. Financial terms were not officially disclosed.

Skroutz's founders will sell a portion of their shareholding but retain a stake and continue to lead the business, with George Hadjigeorgiou remaining chief executive officer.

Founded in 2005, Skroutz started as a price-comparison engine before transforming into a full marketplace under CVC's ownership over the past six years. It now offers more than 12 million products from approximately 9,000 merchants to around 2.5 million active users across Greece, Cyprus, Romania, and Bulgaria.

The company has built its own last-mile logistics arm — which handles 70% of its deliveries — a fulfilment warehouse covering 14% of next-day orders, 250,000 loyalty subscribers, a retail media business, and a licensed fintech offering.

Why now? Greece has undergone a remarkable economic rehabilitation over the past decade, moving from near-bankruptcy during the sovereign debt crisis to one of Europe's faster-growing economies. That backdrop has made the country increasingly attractive to institutional investors.

For CVC, the sale represents a successful exit from a transformational investment. When it backed Skroutz in 2020, converting a price-comparison site into a fully integrated marketplace had never been achieved anywhere in the world, according to Hadjigeorgiou. That transformation has now been completed — and Blackstone is buying the result.

What could go wrong? Skroutz is the dominant player in a relatively small market. Greece's population of approximately 10 million limits the domestic addressable market, and the company's expansions into Romania and Bulgaria — larger but more competitive markets — are still in early stages.

Sustaining growth rates needed to justify Blackstone's investment at a $746M enterprise value will require meaningful international traction.

E-commerce in Southern Europe is also intensifying, with global players including Amazon and regional competitors investing aggressively in markets where Skroutz is expanding.

The signal: The deal signals that institutional capital is now taking Southern European e-commerce seriously — not as an emerging market curiosity but as a structurally sound investment category.

Blackstone's entry at a $746M valuation for a Greek marketplace that handles its own logistics, runs a fintech arm, and operates a retail media business reflects a conviction that Skroutz has built infrastructure that is genuinely difficult to replicate.

For Greece, the transaction is also a point of national pride — a homegrown tech company, 21 years in the making, attracting one of the world's largest alternative asset managers as its next institutional backer.

Sources:
Blackstone
Bloomberg
Reuters
Global Banking and Finance
The Edge Malaysia
George Hadjigeorgiou, LinkedIn

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J.V.