Dutch retail chain Ahold decided to continue operating in Slovakia. The operator of Hypernova and Albert outlets informed on Wednesday that this year's positive financial results of the subsidiary Ahold Retail Slovakia and expectation of favorable development on the Slovak retail market and conditions on financial markets are behind the decision. In November 2006, Ahold announced its intention to sell its retail outlets in Slovakia, explaining it wants to focus in central Europe on operations on the Czech market, where it had a higher market share.
Slovak private equity group J&T was allegedly interested in taking over outlets of the company Ahold in Slovakia, including Hypernova hypermarkets and Albert supermarkets. If the transaction took place, individual cooperatives of the cooperative retail chain Coop Jednota would have operated Ahold hypermarkets and supermarkets. However, the director for communications of Ahold in central Europe, Libor Kytyra said in October that a sale of Slovak retail network of Ahold to J&T was nothing but a speculation and he only confirmed continuation of negotiations with potential buyers.
Nevertheless, head of Coop Jednota Presov Jan Plucinsky confirmed holding talks on operation of some hypermarkets for SITA in early November, too. According to him, his company was interested in operating Hypernova hypermarkets in Presov and Bardejov. "We offered the J&T Group, which has not yet done business in the retail sector, that if it buys Slovak operations of Ahold we are willing to operate them," said the chairman of Coop Jednota Bratislava, Adrian Durcek three weeks ago. Bratislava-based Jednota showed interest in operating Ahold outlets in Bratislava and Pezinok. The consumer cooperative network Coop Jednota Slovensko as a whole also negotiated acquisition of Ahold operation units. However, the chairman of the board of directors of Coop Jednota Slovensko, Gabriel Csollar said that they withdrew from the talks on the acquisition in October, sooner than the binding bid was submitted.
Ahold Retail Slovakia is a subsidiary of Dutch supranational company Royal Ahold, which entered the Slovak market in 2001. It currently operates 22 Hypernova hypermarkets and three Albert supermarkets in Slovakia. It Q1-Q3 turnover in Slovakia and the Czech Republic was EUR 1.131 billion, which is an increase of 11.1 percent y/y.
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