O`KEY GROUP recognised as `The Best Food Retail Chain` 2018

The award ceremony was held on 21 September at Marriott Krasnaya Polyana in Sochi. The ‘Consumer Rights and Quality of Service’ awards are widely recognised annual awards, honouring the leading companies in the fields of consumer rights and quality of service. Award winners demonstrate responsible practices in the observance of consumer rights, the production of goods, the provision of services, as well as earning the most important trust – that of consumers. The main objective of the awards is the promotion and development of a modern consumer market in Russia.

Armin Burger, Chief Executive Officer of O`KEY Group: 

“The ‘Consumer Choice’ award in the ‘Best Price’ category is both a great honour and a considerable responsibility. We are grateful to our customers for their high regard for our efforts to provide them with great prices. At O`KEY Group our new strategy has made significant improvements to the pricing policy of Group formats and our product quality. We always aim to offer our customers fresh, high quality products at affordable prices and work closely with local suppliers to optimise logistics costs. We also constantly update our assortment mix and hold promotions that offer excellent value for our customers on a regular basis. 

We are very pleased that the expert jury judged us to be the ‘Best Food Retail Chain’ in response to our strong performance across the whole of our business. It is certainly a great award, but even more than this the recognition of our customers, their daily choice is what drives us on.”

Inna Afanasenko, Director for Development of Research Holding ROMIR: 

“A focus on consumer needs is one of the key factors in the development strategy of successful companies. O`KEY, clearly deserves to be counted amongst such companies. The transformation of customer values and the growing emphasis on a rational approach to shopping, including attention to pricing, has been a key trend in recent years. Now more than ever, it is important to attune a company’s offering to its customers’ expectations, within both its assortment mix and pricing strategy. Targeted offers and proactive engagement are both closely watched and highly appreciated by customers.” 

O`KEY’s commitment to the quality of its products has been repeatedly recognised with various awards. In June 2018, O`KEY was duly recognised during Russian Retail Week. At the Russian Retail Week Awards DA! discounters, part of the O`KEY Group, received the ‘Best Retail Startup of the Year’ award. 

The O`KEY retail chain also received the Russian ‘Quality Mark’ for its private label branded products. This reflects the company’s consistent performance in ensuring strict quality control for all products. 

In March 2018, the expert jury of the ‘Best Mobile App Awards’ awarded a platinum award to the O`KEY Mobile application, commending the app’s ‘Mobile family’ function for its convenience and ease of use.

OVERVIEW 

O`KEY Group S.A. (LSE: OKEY, Fitch – ‘B+’, RAEX – ‘ruA-’) is one of the largest retail chains in Russia. The Group operates under two main formats: hypermarkets, under the ‘O`KEY’ brand and discounters, under the DA! brand. 

The Group operated 151 stores across Russia. The Group opened its first hypermarket in St. Petersburg in 2002 and has since demonstrated continuous growth. O`KEY is the first among Russian food retailers to launch and actively develop e-commerce operations in St. Petersburg and Moscow, offering a full range of hypermarket products for home delivery. The Group operates four distribution centres across the Russian Federation. 

For the full year 2017, revenue totalled RUB 177,454,848 thousand, EBITDA reached RUB 9,334,993 thousand, and the net income for the period amounted to RUB 3,166,913 thousand. 

The O`KEY shareholder structure is as follows: NISEMAX Co Ltd – 50.95%, GSU Ltd – 29.52%, free float – 19.53%.