Plus turning into Spar

Tengelmann has sold 174 Plus stores to Spar Magyarország, which brings the total number of Spar stores to 378. Peter Feiner, chairman of Spar Magyarország has told us about the details. Plus stores will be converted into Spar stores within one or two years. This move is part of the regional expansion strategy followed by ASPIAG (Austria Spar International-AG). The value of the transaction is treated confidentially by the parties, but all 2,300 Plus employees will be transferred to Spar. Revenues of the Spar group increased by 15.8 per cent in 2007 compared to 2006, reaching EUR 1.12 billion. Their market share has reached 10 per cent in the retail sector. Last year, 29 Interspar hyper markets, 155 Spar supermarkets and 20 Kaiser’s supermarkets belonged to the group. At present, Spar is waiting for approval of the transaction from the Competition Office. The Spar concept is not simply to turn discount stores into supermarkets, but to combine the advantages of both channels to establish a new type of store. Spar will have two logistic centres by the second half of this year, as construction of their second logistic centre of 47,000 square meter size will be completed in Üllő. In 2007, Spar also continued its unique education program which includes the training of junior experts of organic food.