Pakko Pursuing Western Region Expansion

Ukrainian mass grocery retail (MGR) chain Pakko Holding has announced plans to acquire stores from some of its smaller competitors in Ukraine's Western region as it bids to expand its store footprint to 95 outlets by the end of 2009. Although BMI is decidedly bearish on Ukraine's near term economic outlook (we expect its GDP to contract by almost 15% in 2009), we point to significant long-term upside potential in the country's MGR industry. Although wider industry sales are expected to remain flat in 2009 through to 2013, we have forecast sales to increase by 67.3% and reach US$9.2bn.

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