Serbian retailer Aman has received the green light from local competition authorities to purchase seven stores from Mercator Serbia, owned by Croatian food-to-retail consortium Agrokor.
The stores include four Roda-branded outlets in Belgrade (992 m2), Smederevo (1,684 m2), Sombor (761 m2) and Niš (421 m2), as well as three Idea stores in Belgrade (373 m2), Sremska Mitrovica (1,535 m2) and Pančevo (1,507 m2).
This is the third acquisition by Aman during 2015, with the retailer having previously acquired 8 Interex hypermarkets (in Belgrade, Čačak, Niš, Šabac, Obrenovac and Valjevo) from French retailer Intermarche and a network of neighbouhood stores from Belgrade-based Višnjica Dućani.
Aman, which has been present on the Serbian retail market since 1992, currently operates a total of 138 stores (most of them in Belgrade and surrounding areas), under the formats Hard Diskont, Target and Aman Market.
The latest acqusitions are seen in the context of better market positioning for the arrival of German hard discounter Lidl on the Serbian market.
Lidl has started construction work on its first test store in Smederevo, which should be completed in March 2016.
© 2015 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Branislav Pekic. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
