VILNIUS - VP Market announced last week that it was transferring its base of operations to Riga as part of the retail giant's move to carry out its aggressive expansion plans in the Baltics.
Simultaneously, the company announced that Vega Vaitkeviciene, director of VP Market's sales, would be taking over as the firm's managing director on July 12.
She will replace Ignas Staskevicius, who has been appointed chairman of the board and was set to move to Riga and lead the company's expansion program.
Staskevicius said that VP Market had chosen Riga as the optimal location for its head office in light of its ambitious expansion plans in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for 2004 and 2005.
The company's sales reached 1.9 billion litas (570 million euros) in the first half of this year, a rise of 18.7 percent from the same period a year ago.
VP Market currently operates a chain of 274 stores in the three Baltic countries, of which 187 stores are in Lithuania, 83 in Latvia and four in Estonia.
The company has been actively searching for an entrance into the Polish and Ukrainian markets, and earlier this year announced that it would build three more Akropolis megamalls in Baltic cities - in Riga, Klaipeda and Kaunas.
What's more, the company recently launched direct alcohol imports (made possible by Lithuania's entrance to the EU) and announced that it would open its first store of household goods, Ermitazas, in the annex of the Vilnius Akropolis later this year. Ermitazas will offer building materials, leisure goods, household appliances and utensils, according to Staskevicius.
Too compete with VP Market, Finland's Kesko and Sweden's ICA last month signed an agreement to merge their Baltic operations. The object will be to grab a 25 percent market share in the retail trade.
Under the agreement, Kesko and ICA will hand over their Baltic businesses to a Sweden-registered company. The value of the Kesko Group's assets to be transferred to the new company is 110 million euros, though Kesko will also make additional investments in the new venture.
Since it involves several countries, the merger will need European Commission approval in order to be finalized.
In May, Kesko's Lithuanian subsidiary, Senukai, announced it was constructing a large building-supplies store in Vilnius, which had no match in terms of size even on the concern's home market. The area of the store, planned for the Northern Town shopping center, is 21,410 square meters, plus a covered outside area of 1,550 square meters. The largest K-rauta stores in Finland are half that size.
