Metro Group (Germany)

Metro is Germany's largest retail group, formed in 1996 out of the merger of three separate companies - Metro Cash & Carry, Kaufhof Holding and Asko Deutsche Kaufhaus. It is the country's biggest grocer and electronics retailer, and operates around 2,440 wholesale warehouses, hypermarkets and department stores in 30 countries. Key brands include the Media Markt and Saturn electronics and entertainment stores, supermarket chain Real and Kaufhof department stores. Like its French counterpart Carrefour, however, it has struggled to find a path to strong growth in its domestic market as a result of fierce competition from discount rivals Aldi and Lidl. During 1998 and 1999, Metro streamlined its operations spinning off non-core businesses to joint venture partners, in order to concentrate on big volume, high margin stores. After several years in which it struggled to restore the financial health of Extra, the smaller of its two supermarket chains, Metro eventually sold that business to competitor Rewe in 2008. Advertising Age estimated global measured advertising expenditure of $667m in 2007, making Metro the world's #52 advertiser.

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The Adbrands Company Profile of Metro AG summarises the company's history and current operations. Subscribers may access the following website links:

Metro website

Metro	Makro
Real	Saturn
Media Markt	Metro Group Advertising
Galeria Kaufhof	INNO

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