Auchan

French Auchan Invests $356mln in Russian Market This Year

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In 2017, Auchan Retail, a French company, plans to invest more than 20 billion rubles ($356 million) in the Russian market, the General Director for a hypermarket format of the Russian branch of the retailer, Oleg Alkhamov, told reporters.

“This year we invest more than 20 billion rubles, which is aimed at opening new stores and upgrading IT systems, and, of course, these are investments in rebranding of our supermarkets” Oleg Alkhamov said.

According to him, this year, Auchan will open 4 hypermarkets and 20 supermarkets in Russia, however, this is not the final data.

“We will look at what the market could offer, we always consider proposals from developers who invite us into their trade centers,” the company’s representative added.

Last year the company opened 10 hypermarkets in Russia.

“It’s not slowing down, it is these actual contracts that exist,” he said.

Currently, there are 102 Auchan hypermarkets in Russia.

www.russianconstruction.com

Russian Retail Market 2016

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In 2016, large retail chains grew: Russia’s largest retailers Magnit and X5 Retail Group each opened about 2,000 new stores. Some smaller chains, such as Novosibirsk grocery chain Avoska, Petersburg chain of farm products Girlanda and others, left the market.

A number of companies changed the top management. Alexander Barsukov was appointed a new CEO of Tander (Magnit). Sergei Belyakov replaced Elijah Yakubson as a new president of Dixi retailer, but then a few months later he was replaced by Pedro Manuel Pereira da Silva.

There are reports that Vernij retail chain is selling some of its stores. Although the company denies it, it turned out that a few shops were actually sold to X5 Retail Group.

Meanwhile, retailers explored new markets. For example, many federal companies were interested in opening stores in Grozny, and in February 2016 Lenta retailer opened the first supermarket in the Chechen Republic.

Globus announced that it was going to invest 9 billion rubles in the construction of a retail park near Moscow. Estimated construction period is 2015 – 2020.

Metro Cash&Carry presented a new concept of shops Fasol Express, located at gas stations. The company plans to double the amount of stores every year.

Finnish company Stockmann is leaving the Russian market and closing ten Lindex stores. According to company estimates, the losses amounted to about 78 million euros. Executive Director of the Stockmann was going to resign after the sale of the business in Russia.

In June, Igor Shekhterman, Executive Director of X5 Retail Group, told about the plans of chain development: two most important regions for X5 are Siberia, where it is planned to open 150 stores over the next two years, and South Russia . The first stores are located in Novosibirsk in the stores, previously belonged to Avoska, which was forced to withdraw from the market. The network consisted of 12 stores.

In order to start supplying products to new regions X5 will build new distribution centers. “We have opened 35 distribution centers so far, and we are planning to open around 27 more in five years” – said X5 Retail Group CEO.

In September, premium retail chain Azbuka Vkusa launched a project of biometric payments, now customers can pay by placing a finger on the scanner.

In September, Forbes magazine published the rating of the largest private companies in Russia. Magnit took the first place, followed by X5 Retail Group.

In late October, Kesko Food Russia Holding announced that it would sell 11 K-Ruoka stores in St. Petersburg and Leningrad region to Lenta retailer for 11 billion rubles.

Auchan announced that Atak stores would be rebranded into Auchan store in the next 1,5 year. Also, Auchan in Moscow intends to build the largest distribution center in Europe. The venue will strengthen the retailer’s position in the Central region. In 2017, Auchan plans to increase its investment by almost half – up to 30 billion rubles.

Okey owners, Dmitry Korzhev, Dmitry Troitsky and Boris Volchek, who owned 78.97% of the company, decided to sell their shares. Among the main buyers there are Auchan, Lenta and, according to unconfirmed reports, Magnit.

In December, one of the leading Russian retailer Dixie bought 12 stores from 7th Continent.

www.retail.ru

Russian retail: Ban extension will not change prices or assortment

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Extending the Russian food ban is not such a problem for local retailers, since for less than a year they was able to find a replacement for most banned products, according to a survey conducted by RIA Novosti.

In August 2014, Russia restricted imports of food products from the EU, USA, Canada, Norway and Australia. Meat products, fish, vegetables, fruits, dairy products were banned. In late June, the Russian government extended the ban until August 5, 2016, excluding from the list of oysters and mussels fry and banning import of all cheeses, tightening the rules for import of lactose-free dairy products.

General opinion of the retailers is that ban extension will not influence prices as the new network of suppliers has already built. Although other factors such as seasonality, currency volatility, inflation, regulatory changes may affect prices.

It can be noted that there is a larger assortment range of domestic products on the shelves. Maria Kurnosova, Director of External Communications of “Auchan” noted that the share of imported products is about 3%. In “Dixie”retail chain the share of domestic production is about 90%. The specific demand for imported goods remains, but this applies only to certain groups of products, such as alcohol or fruit.

www.ria.ru

Retail development in 2015

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Most leading retail companies have already announced their plans for the current year. Magnit presented the most ambitious program of the development. Initially, the retailer planned to open 1,100 convenience stores, 80 hypermarkets and Magnit Semejnij stores and 300-350 cosmetic stores, now they are planning to launch 1,200, 90 and 800 stores respectively.

Auchan plans to open 7-8 stores, investing 10 billion rubles into the development of business in Russia this year. Metro Cash & Carry is going to open the same amount of stores this year as they did the last year (in 2014 they opened seven stores). Neither Metro nor Auchan have not change the plan of developmet for the year.

Lenta is going to launch at least 10 hypermarkets during the first half of 2015 . This is more than in the first half of last year, when the company opened five hypermarkets and four supermarkets. Their plan to double the retail space in three years (from the end of 2013 to the end of 2016) remains in force.

Dixy did not report that their development plans would change this year. Last year, in November, Ilya Yakubson, Dixie president, spoke about the opening about 500 stores in 2015.

In the end of the last year, Tony Maher, head of Okey company, spoke of plans to open more than 12 hypermarkets and to launch new project – about 40 discounters “Da!” in 2015. The start was scheduled for the spring. For this projects the retailer was going to use debt funds in the amount of 8 billion rubles. Today, the retailer intends to continue developing, but at a pace that “would be sustainable for the business and does not require significant new credits at the current rates,” – as it was stated in the report on the results of 2014.

The only company who has not announced its development plans for the year is X5 Retail Group.

www.retailer.ru

Supplies to retail chains frozen because of the collapse of the ruble

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Prices in shops cannot follow ruble devaluation: before retailers dictated terms to suppliers, now wholesalers lay down terms to retailers. If retailer do not want to increase purchase prices, deliveries of products may be suspended.

Maria Kurnosova, representative of the hypermarket chain Auchan, reported that part of the suppliers, both food and non-food categories, sent a letter that they would stop the shipment of goods, if the retailer did not increase purchase prices.

Some producers reported that a similar situation occured with Metro Cash & Carry: part of their suppliers stopped shipments or warned about this.

Anastasia Orlova, representative of the retail group “Dixy”, said that there were no breakdowns in the supplies, although some suppliers sent requests to increase purchase prices, they also refused to participate in the discount promotions.

Despite the penalties (up to 50% of the contract value), many suppliers suspended work. Small companies, unlike large multinational companies, cannot supply at a loss for so long. About 70% of the suppliers are in the process of negotiations, and if after a day or two retail chains refuse to accept reasonable prices, deliveries may stop at all, according to the head of the association “Roschaykofe” Ramaz Chanturia. “Empty shelves will cause panic among the population”, so retailers are likely to make concessions, he said.

Producer of fish and seafood “Agama” informed retailer about price increase in proportion to the increase of the dollar on Tuesday, said Yuri Alasheev, chair of the board of directors, they gave retailers a week for approval. He said, that most networks responded “quite calm”. “I think the situation will be clarified by Monday, when retailers will respond to our letter”, said Alashaev.

Wine importer Simple stopped selling wine for a while, it is not possible to order drinks on their website at the moment. Online assistance of the website confirmed that the sales were frozen because of the economic situation, and the problem would be resolved in a day or two. Anatoly Korneev, vice president and co-founder of the company, said that this was a “temporary measure”.

Andrew Agarkov, commercial director of the supplier Uvelka (buckwheat and rice) said that they continued supplies to retailers with the old purchase price and would raise prices in February according to the plan after the negotiations with retailers.

With the constantly growing currency rate there is no time for neg long negotiations on the revision of the price, although there is a rule that it should take 45 days, according to Dmitri Leonov, deputy chairman of the association “Rusprodsojuz”.

www.top.rbc.ru

Magnit and Lenta conquering Siberia

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Magnit and Lenta, along with a local chain, Holiday Klassik, will be the key retailers in the region in the future. Their market penetration in the region will grow faster than those like X5 and Auchan, while product availability on their shelves may become better thanks to the investment into distribution centres.

Russia’s leading market player Magnit, which has operated a distribution centre in Omsk since 2012, recently launched a 19,000 square metre leased distribution centre in Novosibirsk. Investment in logistics facilities clearly shows retailers’ focus on the store expansion in Siberia. Magnit opened its first store in Siberia in 2010 and expand the network to 120 by the end of 2013.

St Peterburg based Lenta opened its first hypermarket in Siberia in 2006 and since then it has opened 17 large outlets. In addition to that it opened a 37,500 sq m distribution centre in Novosibirsk last year. The retailer recently opened its first hypermarket in Krasnoyarsk and it is building its sixth store in Novosibirsk while a new store is planned for Novokuznetsk.

Auchan operates two Auchan hypermarkets and two Auchan City compact hypermarkets, X5 runs 25 small stores and one hypermarket while O’Key has five hypermarkets and one supermarket. In contrast to them Dixy Group and Rewe Group have not penetrated the region yet.

www.freshplaza.com

Auchan plans to open new stores in Russia

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The retailer Auchan plans to open 10-14 new hypermarkets in Russia next year, the general director of Auchan Russia, Jean-Pierre Germain, said during a press conference in Moscow on November,18.

Agreements have already been signed concerning the building of 3 ‘classic’ Auchan hypermarkets, 3 Auchan City hypermarkets, and 4 Our Rainbow (Nasha Raduga) stores, Germain said.

A company’s priority is continual development and the opening of 10 new hypermarkets per year, Auchan Russia President Francois Colombie said.

Auchan will grow its chain by 23 new stores in all, this year, factoring in the Real hypermarkets it has acquired. In late November 2012 the French company announced it was buying the Real hypermarkets from Germany’s Metro Group. The deal was worth 1.1 billion Euro and involved outlets in Russia, Poland, Romania, and Ukraine. The rebranding of all 16 Real hypermarkets in Russia has been completed.

The French company has been a presence in Russia since 2002. It now has 53 Auchan hypermarkets, 18 Auchan City hypermarkets, 4 Our Rainbow hypermarkets, and 4 Auchan Garden (Auchan Sad) stores.

www.freshplaza.com

Auchan develops online sales in Russia

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Aresh Alamir has been appointed as a director of e-commerce sales of “Auchan Russia”. Aresh Alamir is also a marketing director and a member of the board of directors at “Auchan Russia”.

Representatives of “Auchan Russia” say that the new appointment has been created because the company pays a lot of attention to the development of e-commerce and sees this direction as an important one.

The new project will involve almost all kinds of products including food, whereas before customers could order online only furniture and garden items.

www.fruitnews.ru

Auchan’s Atak opens 100th store

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Auchan’s Russian banner Atak opened its 100th store in Russia on 19 June. The store, which was opened by Atak Russia chairman Philippe Delalande, is located in the neighborhood of Nizjni Novgorod and, according to the retailer, “confirms the intention of Groupe Auchan to make Russia a priority objective.”

“In fact, one third of the investments of the supermarket division in 2012 were devoted to the development of Atak Russia, with 33 openings,” Auchan said.

Many of these stores are located in the Moscow and Yaroslavl areas, but the expansion drive also involves more outlying regions, such as the Nizjni Novgorod store, which is located 450km from the capital. The new store is 702 square metres and employs 14 members of staff.

Source: www.freshplaza.com

First Moscow Auchan opens in former Real hypermarket

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The French grocery retailer Auchan has opened its first hypermarket in Moscow in premises previously occupied by a Real store. The Russian Real stores, previously owned by the German Metro Group, were sold along with the Real establishments in Poland, Romania and Ukraine. The Russian transaction was concluded in May this year.
The new Auchan outlet takes up 7,400 m2 in Signalny Lane and offers 25,000 SKUs. This is the 60th of the chain’s hypermarkets in Russia. The remainder of the 16 Real hypermarkets in Russia, bought by Auchan, are to be rebranded by the end of this year.

Source: www.russiaretail.com