The chief financial officer at Germany’s Tengelmann Group, Alfried Bührdel, has said that the group’s Kaiser’s Tengelmann GmbH supermarket business “has been a considerable burden on the Tengelmann Group for more than 15 years”.
Announcing full-year results for the Tengelmann Group, Bührdel added that the sale of the Kaiser’s business is “unavoidable”.
Kaiser’s Tengelmann GmbH generated a net turnover of €1.86 billion (-4.0%) in the 2014 financial year.
Tengelmann had hoped to sell the business to Edeka earlier in the year, however, the German competition authorities blocked the sale. Tengelmann and Edeka subsequently submitted a request for ministerial approval.
"Naturally, we are hoping, on behalf of our employees, that the decision will be in our favour, however, we cannot say anything more about the current progress of proceedings," said Tengelmann Group CEO Karl-Erivan W. Haub.
Overall, the group, which comprises Kaiser’s Tengelmann, KiK, OBI, Tengelmann E-Commerce and TREI Real Estate, generated a net turnover of €8.1 billion, a 5.8-per-cent increase.
© 2015 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones.
