Supermarket company Ahold, which runs the Albert chain in the Czech Republic, has carried out a major restructuring after sales fell heavily.
The Dutch-based firm is scrapping its Ahold Europe division and the overall CEO, Dick Boer, will now have direct charge of the Czech business.
It comes after sales in the Czech Republic dropped 4.7 percent to 1.4 billion Euro in 2013, with the fourth quarter of last year particularly disappointing, as sales were down 7.9 percent to 338 billion Euro.
Jiří Šimara, a retail analyst at securities brokerage Cyrrus, said heavy competition from discount chains such as Lidl and Penny Market, both of which are headquartered in Germany, was hitting Albert hard.
“A lot of customers, they’re moving to discount-oriented stores and Ahold is a premium supermarket. That could be one of the reasons for decreased customer spending – they’re switching to less-expensive supermarkets,” he told the Prague Post.
Adjusted for exchange rates, Albert’s sales in the Czech Republic were down 1.5 percent last year, according to a Czech News Agency report.
