, (in full '''Koninklijke Ahold N.V.''', '''Royal Ahold N.V.'''), (, , ) is a major international
Supermarket operator and
Foodservice company based in
Amsterdam in the
Netherlands . Ahold is listed on
Euronext Amsterdam , the
New York Stock Exchange ,
SWX Swiss Exchange and the
Frankfurt Stock Exchange .
The company's origins can be traced back to
27 May 1887 with the founding of the
Albert Heijn grocery store in
Oostzaan , the Netherlands. The grocery chain expanded through the first half of the
20th Century , and went public in
1948 . It became the largest grocery chain in the Netherlands, expanded into liquor stores and cosmetic stores in the
1970s , and changed its name to "Ahold" in
1973 . The company expanded internationally starting in the mid 1970s, eventually buying chains in
Spain , the
United States , and
Portugal , and accelerating its acquisitions in the latter half of the 1990s in markets in
Latin America ,
Eastern Europe and
Asia .
This ambitious global expansion was halted by fraud at the chain's
American Subsidiary U.S. Foodservice and by a Board level accounting scandal. In February
2003 , the
CEO and
CFO resigned following charges of financial irregularities. Earnings over
2001 and
2002 had to be restated and the company began selling off some of its
Grocery Chain s in Latin America and elsewhere. By 2003, Ahold had totally pulled out of
Asia . It has also pulled out of
Brazil , once a sizable market for Ahold, and it has sold the Bi-Lo chain in the
United States .
Ahold also formerly owned the Edwards chain of stores, but changed most of the stores under that banner to Stop & Shop in 2000.
Ahold has sold almost all of their activities in South America.
Some of Ahold's major
Shareholders are
The previous CEO and CFO, who resigned following the recent accounting scandal, were
Cees Van Der Hoeven and
Michael Meurs , resp.
In the turbulent first
Quarter of
2004 sales declined 11% to
€ 15,4 billion and Ahold recorded a
Net Loss of € 405 million. This was partly a result of the sale of subsidiaries in
Brazil and
Thailand at unfavorable prices, in an effort to limit the effects of the accounting scandal. At the end of the quarter, net
Debt s were € 7,1 billion.
Over the full year 2004, Ahold's net sales were 52 billion €. This resulted in an operating income of 195 million € and a net loss of 436 million € by Dutch
GAAP (€ 110 million by
US GAAP ). The net debt had been reduced to € 6.3 billion.
Adapted from CorpKnowPedia article under the clauses of
GFDL
