Pepco Group, the fast-growing pan-European variety discount retailer and owner of the PEPCO and Dealz brands in Europe and Poundland in the UK, has today announced the planned opening of its first PEPCO store in Spain. The store will be located within the Grand Via Shopping Centre in Alicante and will open on the 29thApril.
With its market entry to Spain, PEPCO now has 2,200 stores in 14 countries, with the overall Group, including the Poundland and Dealz brands, trading in 16 countries across Europe and more than 3,200 stores in total.
Following the announcement in February that PEPCO planned to launch in Spain, preparations for the first store and planned development of further stores has progressed quickly. Ten further store openings, creating more than 100 jobs, are planned across Spain by September 2021, including in Castellon de la Plana, Elche, Lorca and Xativa.
The store openings in Spain follow the successful openings and customer reception in Italy where PEPCO has traded five stores since September 2020. As part of the Group’s expansion across Europe, the PEPCO brand has also commenced preparations to open stores in Austria.
Andy Bond, Pepco Group CEO, said: “Following PEPCO’s successful launch in Italy, the opening of the first PEPCO stores in Spain is a further statement of our confidence in the competitive advantage that PEPCO brings to customers across the entirety of Europe. We are confident that the combination of western European store format and product quality at central European prices will prove highly appealing to our new customers across Spain.
“We completed extensive research on the Spanish market, which we already know well from the rollout of our Dealz brand there, and see it as a key part of our ambitious plans to become Europe’s pre-eminent discount variety retailer.”
ENDS
For further information, please contact:
Company Enquiries:
Mat Ankers, Investor Relations Officer +44 (0) 7860 518 472
Nick Wharton, Group CFO +44 (0) 203 735 9210
Media Enquiries:
Finsbury:
Rollo Head +44 (0) 7768 994 987
James Thompson +44 (0) 7947 796 965
Notes to Editors
Pepco Group Overview
Pepco Group was established in 2015 and comprises two strong, independent value retailers – PEPCO and Poundland, which also trades internationally under the Dealz brand, together with a global sourcing arm, PGS, which works very closely with both operating companies. Together PEPCO and Poundland operate across some of Europe’s largest economies. Pepco Group now has more than 3,200 stores in 16 countries including the UK, the Republic of Ireland, Spain and across the CEE region, employing c. 35,000 people.
About PEPCO
After more than 14 years of continuous growth, PEPCO now serves over 20 million customers a month, offering apparel for the whole family, household goods and toys at the lowest prices. With its Head Office in Poznan in Poland, the company has around 17,000 employees in 13 different countries in Central and Eastern Europe, with the largest footprints in Poland, Romania, Hungary and Czech Republic.
The first 14 PEPCO shops opened in Poland in 2004. PEPCO expanded into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 2013 and between 2015 and 2017 opened in Croatia, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania and Slovenia. In the three-month period under review the company has opened 87 net new stores in total across the PEPCO estate.
PEPCO is widely recognised as one of Poland’s strongest brands and most dynamic companies. It has regularly won the Forbes’ Diamond Award as one of the country’s fastest-growing companies and the Superbrand Award for quality and trust among Polish consumers. It was recently recognised as one of Poland’s best employers placing 4th overall and 1st in it’s category in the Forbes Poland Best Employers list 2021.
About Poundland
Since opening its first store in Burton-upon-Trent in 1990, Poundland, has built a network of 917* stores in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, offering top brands and great quality own brand products, that provide customers with amazing value every day.
Nominated by Retail Week as Value Discounter of the Year 2019, it now has c.18,000 colleagues who serve over seven million customers every week from Wick to Weymouth, Londonderry to Lowestoft and Holyhead to Hastings.
Poundland offers thousands of quality products in store with over 1,000 well-known brands in 17 shopping categories including food and drink, health and beauty, household, gardening, DIY, Pet, Stationery, Books, DVDs and Toys. Around nine in ten items at Poundland are available at its original £1 price point and over the last 12 months it has built out new ranges by introducing items from 50 up to £10 that are underpinned by the same philosophy of simplicity and amazing value.
Poundland also trades internationally through the Dealz brand with a building store base in both Poland and Spain. Within the UK it has also rolled out its fashion brand PEP&CO to approximately 300 of its larger stores. PEP&CO offers customers a full range of women’s, men’s and kids’ fashion and bringing new style to Poundland with simple low pricing on family fashion that’s hard to find on local high streets. PEP&CO has been nominated in the 2019 Retail Week Awards as Private Label of The Year.
*include Fultons stores