Recife, Brazil / Zaandam, The Netherlands, July 3, 2001 - Ahold, the international food retail and foodservice company, today announced its wholly-owned Brazilian subsidiary Bompreço has acquired five hypermarkets from French retailer Carrefour. The five stores, with annualized combined sales of approximately Euro 50 million, have an average selling space of 40,000 sq.ft. (approximately 4,000 sq.m.). The transaction enables Ahold's operating company Bompreço to strengthen its position in northeastern Brazil, where it already has 110 stores with annualized sales of approximately Euro 1.7 billion.
Bompreço plans to remodel the five stores this fall to its own compact hypermarket format 'Hiper Bompreço', that offers approximately 30,000 food items and general merchandise. The former Carrefour hypermarkets trade under the Stoc brand.
Including the five newly-acquired hypermarkets, Bompreço now operates 26 hypermarkets, 82 supermarkets and two department stores in northeast Brazil. As regional market leader, Bompreço plans to open additional supermarkets and hypermarkets this year as well.
Bompreço's supermarkets offer about 10,000 food items and general merchandise. The stores have full service departments for fresh and pre-packed meat, fish and bakery products. Bompreço also operates very large hypermarkets up to 130,000 sq.ft. (approximately 13,000 sq.m.), where consumers can find over 35,000 food items and a large variety of general merchandise, and compact hypermarkets located in city centers with considerable parking facilities.
To become a truly multi-format Ahold operator, Bompreço plans to open discount stores in its trade area. Know-how from Ahold's joint venture partner La Fragua in Guatemala is being used to develop this discount format for Bompreço.
In December 1996, Ahold and Bompreço established a 50/50 joint venture. Bompreço became a wholly-owned Ahold company in June 2000. Approximately 21,000 associates work at Ahold's Brazilian store chain.