Auchan Romania opens the first rebranded Real hypermarket

The Romanian subsidiary of French retailer Auchan opens this Thursday the first Real hypermarket rebranded as Auchan after at the end of 2012 it took over 20 local Real hypermarkets as part of a regional deal with Metro Group.

Auchan announced this September that it will rebrand all of the 20 stores within less than a year.

The rebranded hypermarket is located in Bucharest (Pallady Boulevard) and has a sales area of 10,000 sqm. The rebranding process took some 3 weeks and consisted mostly of technical upgrades and the reorganization of the sales area.

Following last year’s takeover, Auchan Romania has reached a network of 31 stores in Romania with a total sales area of 252,000 sqm and, 3 logistical platforms, over 10,100 employees and 70 million customers. The combined turnover of the two networks amounts to over RON 4.5 billion (excluding taxes) or about EUR 1 billion.

At the end of November 2012, Group Auchan announced it had taken over 91 Real hypermarkets in Poland, Russia, Romania and Ukraine and 13 shopping mall locations in Russia and Romania for a total EUR 1.1 billion. In these four countries, Real reported in 2011 sales of more than EUR 2.6 billion and has around 20,000 employees. Auchan already operated 98 hypermarkets and has a workforce of more than 65,000 employees in Poland, Russia, Romania and Ukraine at that time.

Groupe Auchan is the world’s 10th largest retailer. It operates in 13 countries and has 287,000 employees. It is structured into 5 core businesses: hypermarkets (709), supermarkets (786), retail real estate (Immochan), banking (Oney Banque Accord), e-commerce, and other activities.

In 2012, Auchan Group reported a turnover of EUR 60.2 billion, taxes included, and 2 billion customers.