TIRANA, May 27 – Albania’s Balfin Group has reacquired the Carrefour supermarket chain, which it previously owned under the Euromax brand, after Greece’s Marinopoulos apparently went bankrupt.
Balfin Group is one of the biggest companies in the country operating the country’s two biggest commercial centers outside Tirana and is also involved in construction and mining.
Billionaire Samir Mane, the Balfin Group President, told local media in an interview his group had acquired the exclusive rights of the French giant Carrefour for Albania from a subsidiary of Marinoupolos which had accumulated around 7 million euros in debts to local suppliers.
Mane says the repurchase was a move also conditioned by the poor performance of the chain affecting the influx of customers in the trade centers.
Marinopoulos acquired the supermarket chain formerly known as Euromax in 2013 rebranding it as Carrefour. The network consisted of two hypermarkets and 17 supermarkets.
Samir Mane has been named Albania’s first billionaire with an estimated fortune of US$1.2 billion, according to Wealth-X intelligence provider.
