Alchemy says interested in Baugur assets

BERLIN (Reuters) - Turnaround specialist Alchemy Partners is looking at the assets of troubled Icelandic group Baugur, which has major UK retail interests, after Baugur said restructuring talks with its lenders had failed.

"We have been reported as looking at some of those assets and we are looking at those assets," managing partner Jon Moulton told Reuters in an interview at the SuperReturn private equity conference in Berlin on Wednesday.

Moulton said Baugur's assets ranged from the "quite nice and quite large to the really pretty horrible and quite tiny."

Private equity firm Alchemy was not looking at flagship department store chain House of Fraser, he said, adding that the company's debt trades at a significant discount to face value, indicating market worries over the future of the business.

"It's quite highly geared and has to be having quite a hard time of it right now," he said.

Moulton would not rule out a deal for jewellery chain Goldsmiths, which Alchemy has owned twice before, but added: "It's hard to imagine it had a good Christmas."

Baugur's wide-ranging consumer portfolio includes the frozen food specialist Iceland, toy store Hamleys and a 49 percent stake in fashion group Mosaic.

(Editing by Hans Peters)