THE DUTCH retail chain Ahold, which operates the Hypernova and Albert stores in Slovakia, agreed in mid November with Condorum, a company close to the J&T financial group, over the sale of its stores. The deal still needs approval from the Antimonopoly Office (PMÚ), the TASR newswire wrote.
The financial details of the transaction have not yet been finalised, while the whole transaction is expected to conclude in the first half of 2014.
Ahold, after closely examining its strategic opportunities, decided to sell its Slovak investments and focus instead on developing its activities in the Czech Republic.
The Dutch retail chain operates 24 stores in Slovakia. In 2012 it achieved net sales worth €159 million. In the Czech Republic it operates 283 Albert stores, while its net sales were €1.76 billion last year.
Condorum already operates more than 90 stores under the label Terno and Moja Samoška in Slovakia. Its net sales last year were €127 million.
If the PMÚ clears the deal, it will result in the creation of the biggest Slovak-owned retail chain in the country, wrote eTrend, the online edition of the economic weekly Trend.
Sales of Ahold have been declining in Slovakia at least since 2008, according to eTrend. Thus the owners of Terno and Moja Samoška, who do not hide their ambition to expand, face quite a lot of work, wrote the economic magazine.
While the sale is being described by Slovak media as the deal of the year in the retail sector, the Sme daily recalled that the PMÚ did not clear a sale of four hypermarkets operated by French Carrefour to British Tesco in 2007, arguing that it would have allowed Tesco to strengthen its already dominant position on the Slovak market.
