Tesco to bid in Poland

The worst kept secret of the weekend is that giant UK retailer Tesco is considering making a bid for the Polish arm of French rival Casino.

The bid is likely to top €800m, though Tesco may have to bid against the French super giant retailer Carrefour. Tesco is already a big player in the rapidly growing Eastern European market where it sees still more opportunity, as a group it made more than £2.25bn underlying profit last year.

Tesco pretty much already dominates Hungary, and is using its Eastern European powerbase to push further into the other growing states – last quarter Tesco’s international stores contributes over 15% growth. We should expect more of these sort of initiatives over the upcoming months.

Most watched will be Tesco’s more recent planned move into California – stepping on the toes of super giant Wal-mart – if Tesco can grow here at the same rate it rolled out into Eastern Europe then the California dream will drive Tesco into a new position as a true global retailer. Let’s not forget though, that many British retailers have already tried and failed this el dorado (M&S – Brookes Bros).