Consolidation of supermarket sector
The year is closing in the supermarket sector with as many as nine takeover deals, vindicating those who predicted that when the pandemic subsided and the inflationary crisis intensified, a new round of concentration would start, with major players going after small and medium-sized local chains.
Large grocers Masoutis, Sklavenitis and Kritikos starred in the rally of acquisitions, with My Market staying out and choosing its own growth over expansion from acquisitions. AB Vassilopoulos tried without success to proceed with a chain acquisition, having, of course, been plagued for most of 2022 by internal administrative reshuffles.
In total, through the above acquisitions, around 350-400 million euros of turnover changed hands this year.
With profit margins compressed since the beginning of the year and especially after the start of the war in Ukraine, when inflationary pressures intensified, supermarket chains were under pressure as a whole. As in any sector, of course, the smaller businesses have been the least shielded against this pressure, since they can neither absorb much of the price hikes to stay competitive nor invest in energy conservation. They also had not benefited as much as the big ones from the extremely increased turnover of the 2020-2021 period.
Having taken the decisive step to enter Attica in 2018 with the acquisition of Promitheftiki, the main objective of Masoutis was to expand more widely across southern Greece. Its agreement reached in February 2022 with SYN.KA on Crete, saw Masoutis take the most decisive step toward achieving that goal, as it entered the Cretan market, plus the Cyclades, Chios and Corfu.
A few days ago, Masoutis also acquired 10 of the 15 stores of Family Supermarket chain in northern Greece, after buying out a much smaller chain, Afi Ioannou Denaxa, which has three stores, on Mykonos, Santorini and in Athens.
Sklavenitis acquired two local chains in 2022 – nine of the 11 stores of the SEP Papadopoulos chain in Ioannina and last week four stores from Gegos’ six in eastern Attica.
Kritikos continued to strengthen its network, acquiring in August the “Associated Grocers” group, which involved 52 stores of the group, as well as brands Ellinika Market, Proodos Market, Ilios Market and Grigora, and their extensive network of 300 stores. A month later it reached a deal with Cretan chain Mathioudakis.
