Asda to buy Netto
According to reports in Retail Week, supermarket giant Asda has announced plans to buy the UK stores of Danish discount retailer Netto for £778m.
Asda said that, pending approval from the Office of Fair Trading, it hoped to finalise the deal later in the summer.
Netto has 193 stores in the UK which will continue to trade as normal for the time being but will come under the Asda brand by mid-2011, as the stores are integrated into its new supermarkets division for shops smaller than 25,000 square feet, giving the company real presence in the small supermarkets sector.
Netto stores are around 8,000 sq ft in size, and the number of SKUs will be increased from 1,800 to 10,000. Asda plans to employ up to twice as many staff in each of the stores it has acquired.
“Customers will benefit from low prices on a significantly broader range of quality products, complemented by the wide range of services we offer in all our smaller stores,” said Asda chief executive Andy Clarke.
Danish discounter Netto has operated in the UK since 1990, and now plans to focus its growth on Scandinavia and Northern Europe.
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