January 2025 is the first full month when the supermarket and convenience store chain Profi has been under the umbrella of Dutch-Belgian group Ahold Delhaize, which also owns Mega Image in Romania, which numbers 1,000 stores. At the end of 2024, the Competition Council approved the acquisition of the about 1,750 Profi stores by Ahold Delhaize. The seller was buyout investor MidEuropa Partners, which had owned them since 2016. In that period, the retailer had expanded fast, by as many as 170 to 220 stores in some years.
Profi would announce as many as 20 to 30 new stores inaugurated a month in 2020 and 2021, compared with only two this year. Even in 2023, when the sale of Profi was being discussed, the retailer added 110 new stores and closed 20. Its officials did not reply to ZF’s questions about the number of store openings and closings in 2024, nor did they reveal the 2025 plan.
According to ZF’s calculations, Profi inaugurated 75 stores in 2024, and the January data show a significant slowdown of expansion, which can be explained by the fact that now Ahold Delhaize has to integrate the business into its own, which also includes Mega Image. The group officials have yet to specify how the process will unfold or what will happen to the two businesses, whether they continue to operate as separate entities or not. One thing is certain, the brands will remain.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)