China’s largest supermarket chain Lianhua Supermarket is planning to open 1,000 outlets this year in a bid to expand its share of China’s food retail market.
The move comes as the company’s investment bankers market Lianhua’s offering of 150 million H-shares, priced between HK$3.17 (US$0.41) and HK$4.17, raising up to HK$625.5m in gross proceeds, reported Dow Jones International News.
Lianhua plans to spend around 500m yuan (US$60.4m) on the new outlets, half of which will be directly operated and the other half franchised, according to a company spokeswoman.
Of the 500 outlets to be operated by Lianhua, 15 will be hypermarkets, 85 will be supermarkets and 400 will be convenience stores.
At the end of April, Lianhua had 2,088 retail outlets, of which 17 were hypermarkets, 887 were supermarkets and 1,184 were convenience stores.
