Metro has risen: German retailer has increased investments in stores in Russia
German Metro has increased investments in Russian stores: according to the results of the fiscal year 2024/25, they increased by 13%, to €43 million, Izvestia learned. The network is strengthening its presence in Russia despite the difficult relations between the two countries. The company is one of three Western FMCG retailers, along with France's Auchan and Germany's Globus, which continue to operate in our country. Experts note that Russia remains the world's largest consumer market and is very attractive to Western businesses. For the companies that left, the decision to exit was extremely painful: the networks faced multibillion-dollar losses, and assets were sold at a discount. How do Western food retailers who continue to work in Russia feel? — in the Izvestia article.
What the Metro network in Russia has invested in
In the 2024/25 financial year (ended in September 2025), Metro's investments in Russian stores amounted to €43 million, which is 13.2% more than last year, according to the company's December report, which was studied by Izvestia. The Russian representative office forwarded the questions to the parent company. A representative of Metro AG told Izvestia that the investments indicated in the report were aimed at maintaining the business, including the development of IT infrastructure.
According to him, the retailer is now "fully operational" on local solutions and services, regardless of the rest of the group. In the new financial year, the company does not plan to invest in business development in the Russian Federation, he added.
According to the results of the 2024/25 financial year, the retailer's revenue in Russia amounted to €2.6 billion, which is 6.7% more than in the previous financial year, and the adjusted EBITDA (reflecting the company's earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation) of the division amounted to €143 million, which is 6% less than a year earlier, the report says..
The chain has been operating in Russia for 25 years and considers the Russian market to be important and mature in terms of professional trade and the HoReCa segment (hotel and restaurant business), said Mikhail Burmistrov, CEO of Infoline Analytics. The first two Cash & Carry shopping malls opened in Moscow in 2001. By the mid-2010s, the chain was one of the largest foreign retailers in Russia by revenue. By the end of 2025, the company, according to its own data, operates 93 hypermarkets in 51 regions of the country, and their total area is about 659 thousand square meters. m.
In early 2014, the retailer planned to hold an IPO of the Russian division of Metro Cash & Carry. In January of the same year, the company announced the possibility of placing up to 25% of the subsidiary's shares on the London Stock Exchange. At the end of 2013, the then chairman of the Management Board, Olaf Koch, noted that the IPO of the Russian division could be a source of financing for business expansion in the country. However, in the spring of 2014, the deployment was postponed indefinitely due to the situation around Ukraine.
The importance of the Russian market for Metro
In March 2022, the German retailer announced that it had no plans to close shopping malls in Russia. At the same time, at that time, he was considering the possibility of selling the Russian business to an outside investor, according to two Izvestia sources familiar with his plans. But the company failed to find a buyer for its hypermarkets in the country, so the sale was postponed, and the stores continued to operate in the same format, one of them said.
The Russian market is "extremely important" for the network, according to a third Izvestia source close to the company. According to him, if the sale of the business could take place, it would be "only reluctantly." The retailer continues the optimization process in the Russian structure, said another Izvestia source familiar with the chain's plans.
At the same time, the company's report indicates that continuing operations in Russia entails economic, political and reputational risks "related to sanctions, counter-sanctions and government interference in operational activities, including possible expropriation." At the same time, according to the results of the 2024/25 financial year, the Russian subsidiary had €214 million on its balance sheet compared to €184 million a year earlier, the document says.
For the German retailer, Russia has historically been a key and fast-growing market in the Eastern European region, says Zulfiya Shilyaeva, Senior Director and Head of CMWP's Retail real Estate department. According to the results of the 2024/25 financial year, the Russian business generates about 8% of the group's revenue, second only to France and Germany, according to the Metro AG report. In 2021, Cash & Carry focused not only on retail development, but also on e-commerce in cooperation with Cooper (until July 1, 2024, Sbermarket), which contributed to sales growth in the B2C segments, the expert added.
Which retailers are still in Russia
Some other European retailers, such as the German Globus chain, have also retained their business in Russia. For him, Russia also turned out to be a "very important" market, Zulfiya Shilyaeva points out. In terms of the number of products, the division has already outstripped the parent company, and in terms of turnover, "it has either surpassed the German market or approached it," said Vladimir Chernus, head of retail real estate at IBC Real Estate.
By the end of 2024, the revenue of Hyperglobus, which manages the chain's stores in the Russian Federation, amounted to 157.1 billion rubles — 9.6% more than a year earlier, according to the RAS report. Net profit for the same period increased by one and a half times, to 6.6 billion rubles.
The retailer's plans for development in the direction of Kazan indicate a successful operation in the Russian market, added Zulfiya Shilyaeva. At the same time, a Globus representative told Izvestia that the company is not negotiating the purchase of any space and "in principle is not considering development outside the Central Federal District," focusing on the development of its existing facilities and services.
The French hypermarket chain Auchan also continues to operate. In October 2024, the company was negotiating the sale of its business in Russia, the French La Lettre and Le Figaro wrote. Among the potential buyers, Vedomosti and the French newspaper Le Monde named Severgroup and Gazprombank. The retailer itself did not confirm the possible sale of the Russian subsidiary.
By the end of 2023 (the latest available data), the revenue of Russian chain stores amounted to 226 billion rubles, which is 4.7% less than a year earlier, according to RAS reports. Net profit for the same period decreased 10-fold, to 460 million.
Auchan Retail Russia continues to operate and has no plans to change the format or organization of its activities, a representative of the organization told Izvestia. According to him, the key task is to provide customers with high—quality goods at affordable prices. The network operates in Russia autonomously, without investments from the parent company, the source said.
Losses of companies that left Russia
In 2022, some international retailers left the Russian market. In March, Spanish Inditex (Zara, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius) suspended operations in the country, and in April 2023 it sold its division to R-Mixed, a company registered in the UAE. The owners of the Decathlon network (Desport) controlled by the Mulier family, as well as Leroy Merlin (Leman Pro), which was transferred to the management of the Russian top management, changed hands. By the end of 2023, major clothing retailers such as H&M, Uniqlo and the Yoox Net—a-Porter Group (brands ASOS, Burberry, Farfetch), as well as the Swedish IKEA, have left the Russian market.
However, Russia is "the world's largest consumer market," according to Vladimir Chernus. He was and remains very attractive to Western business, Zulfiya Shilyaeva agreed. The volume of spending by Russian households in the second quarter of 2025 reached almost 19 trillion rubles, according to data from Trading Economics.
Thus, for Globus, the domestic market accounts for half of the revenue of the global retailer's business, said Vladimir Chernus. And for the networks that left him, the decision to leave was extremely painful, Zulfiya Shilyaeva noted. Western companies faced multibillion-dollar losses, assets were sold at a discount, which is "extremely unprofitable," said Vladimir Chernus. At the same time, it will be "extremely problematic" for them to return, he believes. According to Mikhail Burmistrov, the losses of foreign corporations due to the curtailment of activities in the Russian Federation could amount to at least $ 150 billion.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
