Dia has announced plans to close 40 of its El Árbol stores and rebrand the remaining 342, according to La Nueva España.
The group hopes to come to an agreement with the employees of the closing shops and relocate them to different stores, while the surviving supermarkets will become either Dia Market or La Plaza de Dia, the newspaper reports.
Dia bought El Árbol for a mere €1 in 2014, taking on the company’s debt in the process. The subsidiary continued to underperform, posting a 3-per-cent fall in sales in 2015, leading to Dia reportedly deciding that the current course of action was no longer viable.
When El Árbol was acquired by Dia, it employed around 7,000 people. However, La Nueva España reports that Dia has not yet revealed which stores will be closed and how many employees will be affected.
© 2016 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Brian Dermody. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
