History of real,- Group Holding GmbH
Starting in 1992, real,- was created out of the merger of 13 hypermarket operators with very different sales concepts: real-kauf, divi, Continent, massa, massa-Mobil, Meister, esbella, basar, BLV, Huma and Suma. In 1998, allkauf and Kriegbaum were added to the chain. Each of these companies had a very successful regional track record spanning several decades.
real,- Group started its international activities in 1997 in Poland, followed by Turkey in 1998. In summer 2005, the first real,- hypermarket was inaugurated in Russia and just one year later in Romania.
The takeover of the Polish Géant hypermarkets and a Russian Marktkauf hypermarket at the end of 2006 as well as the planned market entry in Ukraine underlines the consistent growth orientation of real,- abroad. Besides acquisitions, real,- grows organically by opening several new stores each year.
In 28 July 2006, the METRO Group announced its takeover of the German hypermarkets of the US business group Wal-Mart. In just eight months, around 70 stores - and thus more than 80 per cent of the acquired Wal-Mart stores - switched over to the real,- sales concept. By integrating Wal-Mart's German hypermarkets, real,- backed up its claim to be a market leader and thus at the same time created good prospects for the large majority of its stores and employees.
Currently real,- operates around 320 large hypermarkets in Germany. In 2009, real,- Germany recorded a net turnover of €8.59 bn.
real,- International reached net sales of € 2.7 (almost 25 % of total real,- sales) and employed about 28,000 people in 2009. The first Ukrainian store is opened at the 16th of October 2009 in the region of Odessa. In total 107 large scale hypermarket stores were developed outside Germany –, 54 in Poland, 13 in Turkey, 15 in Russia, 24 in Romania and one in Ukraine.
The real,- group achieved total net sales of € 11.3 bn in 2009.
