- MARKANT takes over settlement of Real and METRO Cash & Carry Germany
- Real, METRO Cash & Carry Germany and suppliers benefit by synergies and simplifications
Düsseldorf, Germany, 2015-4-27 — /EPR Retail News/ — Real and METRO Cash & Carry Germany signed a service agreement with MARKANT Handels- und Industriewaren Vermittlungs AG. MARKANT will in future be responsible for the complete settlement of the German merchandise business of both entities. The migration will be effected in several steps.
MARKANT AG is a service company with activities across Europe that, besides taking the role of a intermediary between trade and industry, offers a vast portfolio of services along the complete value creation chain and in the backup field. Effective now, the entire German merchandise business of Real and METRO Cash & Carry Germany will be handled through this company. With this move, METRO GROUP is strengthening the competitiveness of its sales lines on the domestic market. The migration will be effected in several steps and is expected to be completed by the end of 2015. This means that, in future, the participating suppliers will send their invoices directly to MARKANT. MARKANT will then settle them with due consideration of the agreed conditions and draw the funds directly from Real and METRO Cash & Carry Germany. Thanks to the high degree of harmonisation with MARKANT, this will also result in synergies and benefits on the suppliers’ side because they will in future benefit from standardised settlement processes. The existing collaboration between METRO GROUP and Groupe Auchan is not part of this cooperation.
“This cooperation will contribute to enhancing the competitiveness of Real”, says Patrick Müller-Sarmiento, Managing Director Purchasing at Real. “Real is focussing on its domestic market in Germany and adjusting its business processes accordingly. With its great experience in German food retailing, MARKANT is the ideal cooperation partner for us”. Real is successfully cooperating with MARKANT already today. This cooperation includes the bundling of non-food, the procurement of Spanish fruits and vegetables via Iberiana and the entry-level drugstore brand Laligne, for example.
Alain Cappannelli, Managing Director Purchasing at METRO Cash & Carry Germany, adds: “We are looking forward to a good cooperation with MARKANT and to thereby leverage additional potential for METRO Cash & Carry Germany. As a trading and services company with activities throughout Germany, MARKANT is highly specialised in the settlement and bundling of purchasing volumes. This way, we can collaborate even more efficiently with our suppliers in the future.”
“Both, Real and METRO Cash & Carry Germany, are an excellent match for us because, with a view to the orientation of their processes, both companies will find a lot of potential for a successful cooperation with MARKANT. The fact that we have been able to convince such partners of our services, and win them, attests not only to the quality of our services, but also to our philosophy according to which, as a rule, we do not meddle in the operational and trading competencies of our partners. Specifically, this means that we respect the different corporate cultures and distribution concepts”, says Franz-Friedrich-Müller, Managing Director of MARKANT AG.
METRO GROUP is one of the largest and most important international retailing companies. In the financial year 2013/14 it generated sales of around €63 billion. The company operates around 2,200 stores in 30 countries and has a headcount of around 250,000 employees. The performance of METRO GROUP is based on the strength of its sales brands that operate independently in their respective market segments: METRO/MAKRO Cash & Carry – the international leader in self-service wholesale – Media Markt and Saturn – the European market leader in consumer electronics retailing – Real hypermarkets and Galeria Kaufhof department stores.
MARKANT AG, headquartered in Swiss Pfäfflikon, is the largest trading and service cooperation in Europe’s food industry and has more than six decades of market experience. Its main trading partners are independent companies.
Gross external sales of the over 100 affiliated trade partners is € 83 billion, of which nearly € 38.5 billion are being settled by MARKANT. The business of MARKANT range from goods brokerage business with around 11,000 industrial partners through information management of the European Central regulation to numerous product data-related services and extensive financial services.