Tuesday, July 03, 2001
Food retail company Bompreo reinforces position in northeast Brazil
Recife, Brazil / Zaandam, The Netherlands, July 3, 2001 Ahold, the food retail and foodservice company, today announced its wholly-owned Brazilian subsidiary Bompreo has acquired five hypermarkets from French retailer Carrefour. The five stores, with annualized combined sales of approximately Euro 50 million, have an average selling space of 40,000 sq.ft. (approximately 4,000 sq.m.). The transaction enables Aholds operating company Bompreo to strengthen its position in northeastern Brazil, where it already has 110 stores with annualized sales of approximately Euro 1.7 billion.
Bompreo plans to remodel the five stores this fall to its own compact hypermarket format Hiper Bompreo, that offers approximately 30,000 food items and general merchandise. The former Carrefour hypermarkets trade under the Stoc brand.
Including the five newly-acquired hypermarkets, Bompreo now operates 26 hypermarkets, 82 supermarkets and two department stores in northeast Brazil. As regional market leader, Bompreo plans to open additional supermarkets and hypermarkets this year as well.
Bompreos supermarkets offer about 10,000 food items and general merchandise. The stores have full service departments for fresh and pre-packed meat, fish and bakery products. Bompreo also operates very large hypermarkets up to 130,000 sq.ft. (approximately 13,000 sq.m.), where consumers can find over 35,000 food items and a large variety of general merchandise, and compact hypermarkets located in city centers with considerable parking facilities.
To become a truly multi-format Ahold operator, Bompreo plans to open discount stores in its trade area. Know-how from Aholds joint venture partner La Fragua in Guatemala is being used to develop this discount format for Bompreo.
In December 1996, Ahold and Bompreo established a 50/50 joint venture. Bompreo became a wholly-owned Ahold company in June 2000. Approximately 21,000 associates work at Aholds Brazilian store chain.