Mercury Retail co-owner sees prospects for opening 50,000 stores

MOSCOW, Nov 3 (PRIME) -- Mercury Retail, Russia’s third largest retailer that manages spirits retailer Krasnoye&Beloye (Red&White) and the Bristol retail chain, can open 50,000 stores in the country, the company’s co-owner Sergei Katsiyev said in an online conference on Wednesday.

“Analysts see about 90,000 stores in this (ultra-convenience) format, and we occupy about 43% of the format according to their calculations. We see that we can open up to 50,000 stores of the Krasnoye&Beloye and Bristol chains in Russia or even slightly more,” he said, adding that the stores can be open in all regions.

As of the end of September, the company operated 9,843 Krasnoye&Beloye and 4,196 Bristol stores in 68 regions of Russia. Until the end of 2021, the combined amount of Mercury Retail’s stores should exceed 15,000, he said.

“We are to launch more than 2,000 stores this year, and we plan to open 2,500 stores next year. In order to do that, we will need to spend only 1% of our revenue and less than 10% of our net profit. Our capital expenditures on launching of a new store amount to less than 2 million rubles, and the payback period is less than 10 months,” he said.

Mercury plans to close 40–45 stores in 2021. “Closing a store for us is like moving because 80% of our capex we take when moving to another place,” Katsiyev said.

(71.4783 rubles – U.S. $1)

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