Bagging Europe's groceries

Takeovers in Europe's grocery-retailing sector work best on the national level. But pressure to grow and the factor are forcing big supermarket chains to look abroad. European grocery retailers are on a shopping spree. The results of a McKinsey analysis of the 400 largest acquisitions in the sector show that the volume of corporate takeovers more than quadrupled--rising from $2.9 billion to $12.4 billion--between 1994 and 1998 (Exhibit 1, on the next spread). Yet a comparison with North America's retail grocery sector suggests that its European counterpart is only at the beginning of a period of consolidation. For, while the top five companies in the United States have a 35 percent share of the US market, the top five in Europe have only a 26 percent share of theirs. Until recently, grocery retailers in Canada and the United States dominated a region or two at most. Today, the strongest have extended their hegemony to multiple markets, and these super-regional market leaders are earning higher returns than their smaller competitors. At the beginning of the 1990s, European grocery retailers grew mostly at the national level: from 1991 to 1994, the top ten realized almost 90 percent of their growth at home. In the next four years, the tables turned: almost half of the growth recorded then stemmed from European cross-border expansion, mostly by acquisition--a trend that is accelerating. Consumer tastes are more homogeneous in the United States than they are in Europe, and this makes it harder for European grocery retailers to realize advantages of scale and scope by operating across different European markets. But there is a general trend toward converging tastes and lifestyles, particularly among younger consumers in Europe, and it will speed up with the introduction of the euro, since cross-border shopping will become more common and manufacturers will sell increasing numbers of identical products in many European markets. Despite the numerous obstacles, European retailers must therefore act now. Leadership positions in the European grocery retailing sector will be decided during the next couple of years--indeed, perhaps in only months. We believe that the industry is likely to develop in one of two ways: either a European grocery champions' league or strong regional fortresses. It is too early to say which outcome will prevail, but we can analyze the important drivers, such as capital markets and competitive pressures, as well as the economic rationale behind the present wave of consolidation. Leaders under pressure A look at the composition of the market value of grocery retailers such as METRO (Germany) and Casino (France) shows that current cash flows account for only one-third of their capitalization and investors' growth expectations for the rest. Since such retailers are active mainly in saturated markets, growth could stem either from international expansion or from acquisitions. By contrast, British retailers such as Safeway and Sainsbury don't carry a growth premium; their current performance almost completely explains their current market value. Because these companies seem to lack the credibility needed for future growth, they suffer from low market-to-book valuations, which put management under heavy pressure and make them potential targets for takeover. The factor increases such pressures. Since moving into Germany, with the acquisition of Wertkauf (1997) and Interspar (1998), and into the United Kingdom, with the acquisition of ASDA (1999), the US company has shown that it sees Europe as more than a test market. The French chains Carrefour and Promodes reacted quickly to Wal-Mart by announcing their merger, putting them one step ahead of competitors in Belgium, France, Portugal, South America, Spain, and elsewhere. Meanwhile, after years of making acquisitions solely outside Europe, Ahold (based in the Netherlands) acquired 50 percent of ICA, the leading Scandinavian grocery retailer. …