Sklavenitis outlines plans to integrate Marinopoulos in Greece | Progresiv
Sklavenitis has further contoured the outlines of its plans to integrate Marinopoulos and announced the creation of ‘Sklavenitis Greek Supermarkets’ which will act as a strategic investor for the new business. 
The announcement follows an infusion of 80 million euros agreed on in early September 2016 that enabled payment of payroll arrears.
The old Marinopoulos stores will be rebranded starting the first half of 2017, partially refurbished and converted at a rate of 6 to 8 per month for the following 3 to 4 years. The final number of stores to be integrated by Sklavenitis depends on the local competition authority’s approval and their proximity to existing Sklavenitis stores.
Sklavenitis will maintain Carrefour’s banner names until 31 March 2017. Sklavenitis will keep the ‘Fresh Market’ banner but is highly likely to divest some former Carrefour Marinopoulos hypermarkets while it engages itself to keep the vast majority of their staff. This will add to an already large workforce as Sklavenitis has one of the highest rates of staff per store.
Another measure concerns Sunday openings; Sklavenitis will cease to operate on the last day of the week in some 33 hypermarkets (3,000 staff, 325 million euros sales), thus aligning them to its operating model.
The merger of the two companies creates the largest retailer in the market with total sales topping 3.5 billion euros (2.0 billion euros from Marinopoulos, 1.7 billion euros from Sklavenitis), a combined store base of over 1,000 stores (900 from Marinopoulos, 160 from Sklavenitis) and a joint workforce of over 20,000 people, making it one of the largest employers in the market. (www.kantarretailiq.com)
