Danish market leader enters Baltics after acquisition

Salling Group is acquiring 314 Rimi supermarkets in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from Sweden’s ICA Gruppen – Retail Detail reports. This will make the Danish retailer the number two in the Baltic states.

Rimi is the second-largest player in the Baltic market, with 314 stores, an e-commerce platform, distribution centres and more than 11,000 employees. Last year, the company recorded a turnover of almost 2 billion euros and an operating profit of 77 million euros. Since 2007, Rimi had been owned by ICA Gruppen, Sweden’s largest food retailer, which wants to focus on the Swedish market.

Salling Group is paying 1.3 billion euros for the acquisition, which does have 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.

Salling Group is Denmark’s largest retailer with chains such as føtex, Bilka 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 (9.4 billion euros) by 2023.