Carrefour acquires Spanish discount retail chain

17 July 2007

French retail giant Carrefour SA, the world''s No 2 supermarket operator behind Wal-Mart, has announced having acquired German company Tengelmann''s Spanish discount operations under the Plus Supermercados brand.

Carrefour said in a statement that its Spanish hard discount unit Dia had bought the 250 Plus Supermercados stores for €200 million ($275.4 million / Rs1,148.6 crore) from privately held German retailing giant Tengelmann Warenhandelsgesellschaft KG.

The agreement also includes 58 future store projects, Carrefour said.

Carrefour plans to expand its presence in the fast-growing "hard discount" sector of the retailing market, where discounts are continually offered on a wide range of goods, in a bid to reduce its dependence on the French market, which has been facing sluggish sales and falling returns.

Carrefour is the leading hard-discount retailer in Spain, where its sales totaled €3.5 billion last year, accounting for about 15 per cent of its overall revenue.

The German firm''s 250 Plus Supermercados will add a sales area of 170,000 square meters of property and net sales of €437 million for the twelve-month period ended April 2007 to the French retail giant''s 2,806 stores operated by its Spanish arm, Dia.