No plans to cut Makro staff, says Booker
CASH and carry group Booker has no plans to cut staff at Makro’s head office in Salford or close stores.
Competition regulators finally approved the £140m deal to buy Salford-based Makro from German group Metro in April.
And while the business expects significant savings, of around £100m over the next three years, it plans to preserve the Makro brand even in towns where both stores are operating.
Chief executive Charles Wilson told TheBusinessDesk.com: “There’s been quite a lot of speculation about what we’re going to do with Makro. The rumour mill was totally wrong, we’re committed to the Makro business. The reason being only 10% of Booker customers shop in Makro and 6% of Makro customers shop in Booker.”
Around 3,000 people work for Makro with 200 in the Eccles head office. Some 10,000 work for Northamptonshire-based Booker which has sales of £4bn.
The smaller Makro business has revenue of £700,000 from 30 shops and Mr Wilson is now aiming for income of £6bn from the combined business. He said Makro is set to make an operating profit of around £10m in the year to March 2014 after several years of losses.
“We’re really pleased with how we’ve turned it around and we’re looking forward to growing it,” said Mr Wilson.
In cases where the merged group has two shops close together it is locating them on the same site, but it is retaining the individual branding and does not plan to cut jobs. Efficiencies have been gained through better terms from suppliers and savings on rents and rates where shops have been located at the same site. Mr Wilson said sales had also improved at Makro after carrying out customer satisfaction surveys.
