The Danish Salling Group has acquired Rimi‘s 314 supermarkets in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from Sweden’s ICA Gruppen. This will make the Danish retailer the number two in the Baltic states.
Synergy
Rimi is the second-largest player in the Baltic market, with its 314 stores and more than 11,000 employees. Last year, the company recorded a turnover of almost two billion euros and an operating profit of 77 million euros. ICA, Sweden’s largest food retailer, had owned Rimi since 2007, but now it wants to focus on the Swedish market.
Salling Group is paying 1.3 billion euros for the acquisition, which still has to be approved by the authorities. The retailer sees synergy potential and stresses that Rimi is currently a strong and well-run company, which will continue with the same management and concept as before in the three Baltic markets.
Six countries
Salling Group is Denmark’s largest retailer, with chains such as Bilka, føtex and Netto. The group also operates around 1,000 Netto discount shops in Germany and Poland. After the acquisition, the company will have about 68,000 employees and almost 2,100 shops in six countries. Its turnover was 70 billion Danish kroner (9 billion euros) in 2023.
The retailer hit the headlines earlier this week with the launch of a label for European products, which should make it easier for Danes to boycott US products as anti-American sentiment has risen in the country.
