Discount Retail Chain Biedronka, owned by Portuguese Jeronimo Martins, plans to open its first stores in Slovakia as early as autumn 2024. It turns out that the discount store can accelerate the development on the market of our southern neighbors by taking over stores from a chain that already operates there.
Biedronka must achieve a scale in Slovakia as soon as possible that will allow the 'new' business to achieve profitability relatively quickly. Opening stores in leased locations and building outlets on purchased plots will not allow the company to grow quickly – especially at the initial stage of building a business in a new market. The only way out is to take over the stores from another retail chain operating on the market.
Cooperative Biedronka in Slovakia
This is probably also what will happen. The Slovak business daily "SME" reports that Biedronka is negotiating the takeover of some of its stores from one of the largest Slovak chains, the Coop Jednota cooperative. "This is at the discussion stage," Ľudovít Kulcsár, chairman of the board of Coop Jednota Dunajská Streda, told 'SME'.
The first Biedronka stores are to be opened in such towns as: Levice, Nová, Povaszská Bystrica, Senica and Zvolen. According to the daily 'SME', the discoonter from Poland (and belonging to the Portuguese Jeronimo Martins Group) is also looking for employees in Kvetoslavov, Dunajska Luen and Miloslawov. It is in these cities that the stores of the COOP Dunajska Streda chain, which is part of Coop Jednota, operate.
The Slovak retail market is strongly consolidated and has been divided between four international players, namely Lidl, Tesco, Kaufland and Billa, competing with Slovak operators Terno, Fresh and COOP.
Read more: Biedronka wants to take over the stores of a large Slovak retail chain. Negotiations are ongoing
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