X5 completes acquisitions in Russia

Russia’s food retailer X5 has successfully finished the acquisitions of two major retailers in Russia. The buy of Korzinka as well as Strana Gerkulesia has been approved by Federal Antimonopoly Service.

As a result of the two approved acquisitions, X5 expands by 51 stores to over 1250 stores in Russia and Kazakhstan. The Strana Gerkulesia deal (US$65m ) is good for extra 29 discount stores, 26 of them are operational, three are scheduled for opening in Q1 2008.  Five stores are located in Moscow, 16 stores operate close to the capital and eight are located in other areas of the Moscow region and in Tver.

The deal also includes an office building and construction in progress. A couple of weeks earlier X5 had made an arrangement for taking over regional retailer Korzinka. The approved Korzinka deal includes 22 stores, 15 of them will be integrated in the Group’s discounter format, six into the supermarket format and one in the hypermarket network.

X5 Retail Group is Russia's largest food retailer in terms of sales.  The company was created as a result of a merger between Pyaterochka (soft discounter chain) and Perekrestok (supermarket chain) in May 2006.

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