Highlights
In 2008, we made good progress with our strategy for sustainable profitable growth. Highlights include:
Ahold
- Net sales of EUR 25.7 billion, an increase of 6.9 percent at constant exchange rates;
- Operating income of EUR 1.2 billion, up 12.2 percent or EUR 130 million from 2007;
- Retail operating margin was 5.0 percent; underlying retail operating margin was also 5.0 percent;
- We repaid EUR 1.1 billion of debt, reduced costs and proposed a dividend for 2008 of EUR 0.18, up 12.5 percent compared to last year’s dividend;
- We published our carbon footprint for the first time, along with targets and goals for each component of our corporate responsibility strategy.
Ahold USA
- Stop & Shop / Giant-Landover completed its Value Improvement Program (VIP), and rebranded its stores;
- In the second half of the year, Giant-Landover delivered two quarters of positive identical sales growth, the first time it has had positive identical sales since 2002;
- Giant-Carlisle continued its strong track record of continuous growth;
- Carl Schlicker moved from Giant-Carlisle to become President and CEO of Stop & Shop / Giant-Landover;
- Sander van der Laan moved from Albert Heijn to become President and CEO of Giant-Carlisle.
Ahold Europe
- Ahold divested its 73.2 percent stake in Schuitema;
- Albert Heijn opened or remodeled 95 stores;
- Etos opened its 500th store and was named “Best drugstore in the Netherlands”;
- Gall & Gall won the Dutch retail prize for food specialty stores of the year;
- Albert / Hypernova made further progress with the rebranding of its stores under the name Albert;
- Albert was voted “Supermarket of the Year” in the Czech Republic for the fourth year in a row.