Coop Sweden has announced that it has acquired Salling Group's Netto retail chain in the country.
Chief executive of Coop Sweden, Magnus Johansson, welcomed Netto to the Coop family. "With considerably more stores and larger volumes, Coop will now have more muscles behind our vision to be the good force in food [in] Sweden, and thus increase the benefit to our owners - our 3.5 million members,” he added.
The stores will be operated by Coop Butiker & Stormarknader, which operates about 240 of the 650 stores in the Coop Sweden portfolio.
The Deal
As a part of the deal, all 163 Netto stores operating in Sweden will be converted to Coop outlets, after a transitional period.
The new stores will offer a wider range of food products, including Coop's wide range of sustainability-labeled food.
The agreement on the transfer of the business also includes the 2000 employees in Netto, Coop said in its statement.
The deal is expected to be completed in the summer of this year, and is subject to approval from the Swedish Competition Authority.
'Concentrate On Fewer Markets'
Salling Group is one of Denmark's largest consumer company which operates Netto stores in Denmark, Germany, Poland, and Sweden.
Commenting on the acquisition, chief executive of Salling Group, Per Bank, said, "At Salling Group, we are very pleased with the deal, which means that we can concentrate our investments on fewer markets and further focus our operations on the benefit of customers in Denmark, Poland, and Germany.”
Financial details of the transaction have not been disclosed.
© 2019 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Dayeeta Das. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
