This article is from WeChat public account:China Economic Weekly (ID: ChinaEconomicWeekly), Reporter: Hou Wei, Cover: Visual China
Metro China is also sold!
On October 11, Metro Group, Wumart Group and Dodge Dmall jointly announced that Wumart has signed a definitive agreement with Metro Group for the acquisition of Metro China. After the transaction was completed, Wumart Group held 80% of the shares in the joint venture established by the two parties. Metro continued to hold 20% of the shares and became a technology partner of Metro China. In the future, Metro China will continue to operate independently under the “Metro” brand.
From Fosun International, Tencent, Ali, RT-Mart, Suning to Yonghui, after looking for a number of buyers, Metro finally ended up with good things.
Intriguingly, why did Metro choose the best? What is the beauty of the company’s huge investment in Metro? After the foreign retail giants have “sold out” Chinese buyers, will the pattern of China’s retail industry be rescheduled?
Metros from Europe to the top of the 尴尬
After careful evaluation, we have chosen to establish partnerships with Wumart Group and many other partners. These two companies are trusted and respected partners of Metro. They and Metro hold the same values and can bring a lot of resources. And expertise, and promiseBased on the past achievements and footprints of Metro China, it seeks development. Metro Group CEO Olaf Koch .
“Current purchase and self-transportation” is different from the traditional wholesale shopping, allowing customers to choose their own goods in the warehouse-style shopping malls, paying in cash and taking them away. It is considered a self-service wholesale format. Compared to the average supermarket, Metro’s store is bigger, like a huge warehouse, all kinds of goods are neatly coded on the storage shelves.
The size of the store area makes Metro’s location often away from the city center, plus Metro has adopted a unique membership system, only customers who apply to join and have a “membership card” can enter the market. All this makes Chinese consumers not used to it.
In the 24 years of entering China, Metro has an average of less than 5 stores per year, and Metro has only 95 stores in China. Compared with other foreign merchants who have blossomed everywhere, the slow development of Metro is unusually embarrassing. According to the data, Metro is in China 2018. The annual operating income is 3.03 billion US dollars, and the net profit is less than 30 million US dollars.
Dongshang.com Senior Advisor Wang Guoping told China Economic Weekly that warehousing members are suitable for economically developed regions, and the sinking market needs to be able to adjust flexibly. “Metro has a model that has not adapted to China’s actual situation. Metro China has limited authority, and the headquarters is not sensitive enough to the Chinese market, which directly leads to a slow response in the Chinese market. Many problems have existed for a long time and have not improved. Compared with other foreign-funded enterprises, Metro expansion is slow, sales are not big enough and further affect the purchasing bargaining power. Although it wants to speed up later, it has already missed the golden period.” Wang Guoping said.
Important value of RMB 10 billion is not worth it?
This transaction is for wheatHref=”https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/WASO8pxt_X3JMpumykoG6A” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow” style=”text-decoration: none;”> China Economic Weekly (ID: ChinaEconomicWeekly), Reporter: Hou Wei