Russia's X5 Retail Group is considering merger and acquisition options in Siberia and the Altai region, but has no plans for major deals at present, the TASS news agency cited chief executive Igor Shekhterman as saying on Friday.
"We are constantly monitoring the market, looking at various deals and 10-15% of our development comes from regional M&A," Shekhterman said, according to TASS.
"We are not planning big M&A deals for now, but we are looking at interesting regional chains that exist today in Siberia, in Altai, and part of our development will come from their partial absorption."
Acquisition Activity
Russia's retail market sprung into life last month with two major acquisitions in the space of two days.
On 18 May, Magnit agreed to acquire 100% of shares in the Dixy retail chain for an enterprise value of RUB 92.4 billion (€10.4 billion), closing the gap on market leader X5 Retail Group. That acquisition also includes five distribution centres, with a total space of 189,000 square metres, located in Moscow, St.Petersburg and the Chelyabinsk region.
The following day, Lenta agreed a €215 million deal for the supermarket business of Billa Russia, in an effort to boost its presence in Moscow. That acquisition is expected to close during the summer.
"If we talk about the influence of recent major M&A deals on X5, then at the moment we don't see much of an impact because Dixy and Billa shops are already located near us, where we successfully compete with them," X5 chief executive Shekhterman said.
News by Reuters, additional reporting by ESM. For more Retail stores, click here. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
