Russian retail giant Lenta has announced that it has signed a purchase agreement to acquire three new stores and three new plots of land.
Interactive Investor reports that the deal has been agreed with O'KEY Group, with the three stores – two located in Chelyabinsk and one in Volgograd – set to become standard-format Lenta hypermarkets.
Construction and fitting-out of the Volgograd store is already completed, while Lenta said that it expects that all three stores will open by the end of the year. Additional new stores are expected to be constructed on the three purchased land plots, located in Chelyabinsk, Omsk and Taganrog, within the 2016-17 timeframe.
Lenta's chief executive officer, Jan Dunning, said, "The deal will strengthen Lenta's position in Chelyabinsk, Volgograd, Omsk and Taganrog – all cities where we are already present. It also enhances our already-strong new-store pipeline, enabling an increase in our guidance to at least 28 new hypermarkets in 2015. In addition to supporting top-line growth, the new stores will also help us realise additional supply-chain efficiencies by increasing utilisation of our DC in Rostov and a new DC under construction in Ekaterinburg, which is scheduled to open later this year."
© 2015 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Andrew Jennings. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
