Highlights
At the end of 2008, we operated 2,897 retail locations in the United States and Europe, employed more than 200,000 people and had combined sales of €25.7 billion. In 2008, we made good progress with our strategy for sustainable profitable growth.
Highlights include:
Ahold
- Net sales of €25.7 billion, an increase of 6.9% at constant exchange rates;
- Operating income of €1.2 billion, up 12.2% or €130 million from 2007;
- Retail operating margin was 5.0%; underlying retail operating margin was also 5.0%;
- We repaid €1.1 billion of debt, reduced costs, and proposed a dividend for 2008 of €0.18, up 12.5% compared to last year’s dividend;
- We published our carbon footprint for the first time, along with goals for each component of our corporate responsibility strategy.
Ahold USA
- Stop & Shop/Giant-Landover completed its Value Improvement Program (VIP) and rebranded its stores;
- In the second half of the year, Giant-Landover delivered two quarters of positive identical sales growth, the first time it has had positive identical sales since 2002;
- Giant-Carlisle continued its strong track record of continuous growth;
- Carl Schlicker moved from Giant-Carlisle to become President and CEO of Stop & Shop/Giant-Landover;
- Sander van der Laan moved from Albert Heijn to become President and CEO of Giant-Carlisle.
Ahold Europe
- Ahold divested its 73.2% stake in Schuitema;
- Albert Heijn opened or remodeled 95 stores;
- Etos opened its 500th store and was named “Best drugstore in the Netherlands”;
- Gall & Gall won the Dutch retail prize for food specialty stores of the year;
- Albert/Hypernova made further progress with the rebranding of its stores under the name Albert;
- Albert was voted “Supermarket of the Year” in the Czech Republic for the fourth year in a row.