Carrefour interested in Migros Türk

French retailer Carrefour’s Turkish joint venture with the local business congolmerate Sabanci Holding is interested in acquiring Turkish retailer Migros Türk. Parent company Koç Holding stated last June 18 to explore the opportunity of selling Migros Türk. The divestment process is due to start in September.

Carrefoursa – as the joint venture is named – has a 14 per cent market share in Turkey with 2006 sales of US$1,354mn. Last year, the joint venture operated 15 hypermarkets and 87 supermarkets. Migros Türk is market leader in Turkey where it operates 798 stores under banners like Migros (hypermarkets), Tansaş (supermarkets), Macro Center (supermarkets) and Şok (discount stores). It controls 20 per cent of the Turkish market.

Migros Türk also has an operation abroad with 80 stores – including twelve malls – in Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyszthan, Azerbaijan and Macedonia. Last March it stopped its underpersoming operations – three stores – in Bulgaria. According to media reports, Sabanci is interested in both the Turkish as the foreign operations of Migros Türk. With regard to the latter, especially the Russian operations (where according to PlanetRetail Migros Türk operates 14 hypermarkets and 60 supermarkets under the ‘Ramstore’ banner) would be of interest.