Portuguese conglomerate Sonae completed the take-private of Finnish pet-care leader Musti Group in March 2024 in a transaction valuing the business at roughly $765 million. Two years on, Musti is the single largest Portuguese-owned operating platform in the Nordics — and one of Sonae's fastest-growing units, with 14% comparable sales growth in Q4 2025.
Sonae acquired Musti Group in 2024 as the cornerstone of its strategy to build a non-food retail growth platform outside Iberia. The deal was structured as a take-private of the Helsinki-listed parent, with Sonae partnering alongside Musti executives Johan Dettel and David Rönnberg, and US investor Jeffrey David. Following the transaction, Sonae integrated Musti as a directly-managed Nordic platform, retaining the Finnish HQ in Helsinki and the operating brands — Musti ja Mirri (Finland), Musti and Arken Zoo (Sweden), Pet City and Musti (Norway), and the pure-play online retailers Peten Koiratarvike and Vetzoo.
By the end of 2025 the group operated 497 locations across the Nordics, the Baltics and Portugal — including 54 vet clinics and 173 in-store grooming spas. In December 2025 Musti announced the acquisition of Portuguese pet retailer ZU (65 stores, 24 with veterinary clinics), creating a rare reverse-flow within the corridor: a Nordic platform owned by a Portuguese parent re-entering the Iberian home market.
Sonae's Musti is the most visible example of a Portuguese listed group running a Nordic operating platform at scale — not a sales office, not a distribution agreement, but a fully consolidated retail network of nearly 500 stores. The Q4 2025 figures show Musti delivering some of Sonae's strongest growth (14% comparable, 3.2% like-for-like, 12.2% EBITDA margin), funding continued deleveraging at parent level. For the wider corridor narrative, this single transaction has done more to put Portuguese capital on Nordic boards than any other deal of the past decade.
Sonae's Q4 2025 / FY 2025 print (announced March 2026) confirmed Musti as a strong contributor: 14% comparable growth, gross margin up from 43.6% to 44%, and continued progress on like-for-like in mature markets. For 2026, management has guided to more than 50 new store openings group-wide, with the Baltics and Portugal as the principal new-market expansion lanes, and continued integration of ZU into the wider Musti operating system. The next earnings release for the listed Sonae parent is in May 2026.
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