The owners of Russian retailer O’Key do not plan to sell the business, the company has insisted, after an interview in which its chief executive said it could be a potential takeover target of Wal-Mart.

In an interview with Bloomberg, O’Key CEO Patrick Longuet said the retailer could be a “potentially attractive acquisition target for Wal-Mart”.

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However, Longuet reportedly added O’Key’s majority shareholders did not plan to sell up – a fact a spokesperson for the retailer highlighted when contacted by just-food.

The spokesperson indicated Longuet’s comments were taken out of context in the Bloomberg report.

“It was just mentioned. Bloomberg asked about foreign retailers to Russia, and Patrick said: ‘Now if a foreign player wants to enter the Russian market, it would be difficult to do it from scratch, it will need to buy local chains. O’Key is a transparent company, has the effective business model and operating in the hypermarket format, maybe, we are a potentially attractive acquisition target for Wal-Mart. Still, as I know, O’Key major shareholders don’t plan to sell the business as it still has high growth potential’,” the spokesperson insisted.

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O’Key, in which Russian billionaires Dmitry Korzhev and Dmitry Troitsky own about 54%, has set a target of doubling its revenue by 2016. In 2012, it generated sales of RUB117.3bn, up 26% on 2011.

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The spokesperson said O’Key was most interested in opening more hypermarkets. There was, he insisted, a “significant under-supply of hypermarkets in Russia”.